Updated 5 March, 2004
 
 
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OECD/DAC Developing country dialogues on
national strategies for sustainable development

Progress towards
national strategies for sustainable development

Mid-term review workshop,
Thailand, 9-14 October 2000

Tanzania: Progress Report October 2000

 


 

Introduction

Objectives and Focus
Key Actors
Approach and Activities of Conducting the Status Review

Completed and Ongoing Activities

Results and Key Lessons of the Status Review

Constraints Encountered

Meeting the Objectives
The Next Steps

 

  1. Introduction

  2. This brief report is divided into six sections. Section one which is the introduction is followed by a presentation of objectives and the focus of the status review in section two. Section three and four present the key actors in the status review as well as the approach and activities carried out to-date respectively. Section five points out activities which have been completed and those ongoing. Section six provides the results and lessons learnt from the status review exercise. Section seven presents a brief note on "meeting the objectives".

  1. Objectives and Focus

  1. Objectives

The status and dialogue review are carried out in order to meet the following objectives:

  1. to jointly come up with guidance on how Tanzania can better prepare and implement NSSDs and how donors can assist

  2. to identify causes of the weaknesses in the national strategies for sustainable development which are typical in the following circumstances:

    • during preparation

    • during implementation

    • strategies are left in shelves/not implemented

    • strategies implemented but in a dragging fashion

    • strategies not prepared at all

    • strategies not correctly prepared.

  3. to propose remedial measures/options to the current weaknesses.

  1. Focus

    Both the status review and the dialogue process are guided by the criteria of nssds which were set by the stakeholders during the first workshop which was held in May 2000, and the field interviews. The agreed criteria for nssds were the following:-

    1. Coverage: The nssd must be either national, multi-sectoral or sectoral

    2. Contents coverage: vision, time frame (short, medium, long-term), implementers, resources, outputs, and indicators for monitoring and evaluation. Above all, a strategy must be backed up by a policy.

    3. Sustainability factors:

      • economic: ensuring growth in GDP per capita income;

      • social: ensuring accessibility to basic needs and improved living standard

      • environment: ensuring environmental standards.

    1. Ownership:

Its formulation and implementation, must be participatory and it has to indicate transparency and a sense of commitment and accountability.

  1. Key Actors

  2. The dialogue initiative in Tanzania is being carried out by the Dialogue Steering Committee and the Lead Team.

3.1  The Dialogue Steering Committee – Functions and Compositions

The major functions of DSC are:-

      1. to assist and guide the Lead Team

      2. to promote the dialogue process

      3. to build constituency and support for the process

      4. to endorse outputs submitted by the Lead Team

The DSC is composed of the following eight members:-

(i) Permanent Secretary, Planning Commission (Chairperson)

(ii) Permanent Secretary, Vice President’s Office

(iii) Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism

(iv) Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Regional Administration and Local Government

(v) Tanzania Chamber of Commerce Industry and Agriculture (TCCIA)

(vi) AGENDA for Environment and Responsible Development - NGO

(vii) University of Dar es salaam,

(viii) Departments for International Development (DIFD)/United Kingdom

The committee first met on August 7, 2000 and is due to meet again in October, 2000.

3.2  The Lead Team

The Lead Team has the following major functions:-

      1. to organize stakeholder workshops

      2. to conduct the status review

      3. to conduct the dialogue process

      4. to prepare the respective reports and submit to the government of Tanzania, donors and key stakeholders.

The Lead Team is currently made up of five members, namely: the Team Leader, two substantive members, and two alternate members. The Lead Team is complemented by three short-term consultants with orientation in plant protection and environment (Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives), environmental sociology (Private consultant) and environmental economics (National Environmental Management Council).

  1. Approach and Activities of Conducting the Status Review

4.1  Approach

In conducting the status review, the following approaches have been used:-

    1. Stakeholder's Planning Workshop

      1. the workshop guide

      2. group consensus approach

    2. Collection of existing strategies and initiatives

    3. Review and identify gaps of strategies

    4. Interviews

      1. Focus group discussion using interview checklist

      2. Personal interviews using interview checklist

    5. Status Review Workshop

      1. Dynamics

      2. Mock Strategy

    6. Revision of Status Review Report


4.2  Activities

Since the Arusha Launching Workshop in April 2000 the following activities related with the status review exercise have been covered:

Activity 1: Holding of Stakeholders Planning Workshop

Issues discussed:-

    1. Setting criteria for national strategies for sustainable development

    2. Listing nssds and initiatives towards sustainable development

    3. Identifying problems of nssds during formulation and implementation

    4. Reviewing and commenting on the status review process.


Activity 2: Review of Status Review Process


Activity 3: Preparation of interview checklist


Activity 4: Collection of existing strategies and initiatives

The distribution of the collected strategies was as follows:

Category

Strategies

Policies/Initiatives

Total

Economic

9

4

13

Social

7

14

21

Environmental

8

9

17

Total

24

27

51

Out of the 24 strategies, 18 were reviewed and the results were presented in the second stakeholders’ workshop in August 2000.

Activity 5: Review of the Collected Strategy Documents

Major issues examined during the review included:-

    1. the origin of the idea of formulating a strategy

    2. major objectives of the strategy

    3. extent of achieving strategy objectives

    4. key stakeholders involved in the strategy

    5. extent of involvement of key stakeholders

    6. methodology used to formulate the strategy

    7. institutions responsible for strategy implementation

    8. institutional relationship and integration.

    9. current status of implementation of the strategy

    10. political commitment and policies towards the strategy

    11. sustainability of the strategy (conditions, criteria/indicators)

    12. major problems encountered during formulation and implementation

    13. proposed solutions to the problems

Activity 6: Preparation and Presentation of Strategy Profiles

Three members of the Lead Team and three consultants were hired and given the task of reviewing the strategy documents and preparing a profile report based on the outline given to them by the Lead Team. Afterwards all of them had to present the reports to the Lead Team where the findings were discussed and comments given to the presenters for revision of the reports before final compilation into one report.

Activity 7: Review of the interview checklist

This was done taking into account of the gaps, which were identified in reviewing the strategies.

Activity 8: Conducting interviews

An interview checklist was used to carry out focus group discussion or personal interviews. Interviews were conducted in five ministries. They were intended to fill gaps identified during the process of reviewing the strategies.

Activity 9: Preparation of Status Review Report Outline Format


Activity 10: Preparation of Draft Status Review Report


Activity 11: Holding of Stakeholders Workshop to Discuss the "Draft Status Review Report"

With the help of a "workshop guide" and using the "group consensus approach" the following workshop activities were performed:-

    1. Preparing a "mock vision" for an imaginary "Ketibongo Republic"

    2. Preparing an outline of a national strategy for sustainable development for "Ketibongo Republic"

    3. Review of two selected "national strategies"

    4. Presentation of draft status review report

    5. Discussion on draft status review report


Activity 12: Finalizing the "Status Review Report" and the "Preparation of Workshop Process
Report"

  1. Completed and Ongoing Activities

    1. The "status review" is completed.

    2. The "dialogue process" would start towards the end of October, 2000, although some activities have been covered during the status review.

  1. Results and Key Lessons of the Status Review

    6.1 Results

    1. Conceptual understanding/definition

      Many stakeholders appear to be not very clear with the concept of "national strategies for sustainable development". The concept "strategy" was difficult to conceptualize and so was "sustainable development".

    2. Contents of the strategy

      Clarification is needed on what constitutes a "strategy for sustainable development" and how does one go about preparing it.

    3. Global changes and external assistance

      Most strategy documents were prepared due to global changes and availability of external assistance. Internal forces played an insignificant role.

    4. Sequencing

      There is discrepancy/inconsistency in the sequencing of strategies and initiatives for sustainable development. Cases exist where there is a policy but no strategy or vice versa.

    5. Stakeholder participation

      The process of preparing strategies needs more participatory input of stakeholders at all levels, that is from parliament to local communities.

    6. Implementation Plan

      Most strategies lack an implementation plan which defines the day-to-day operations of the strategy

    7. Harmonization of strategy preparation methodology and contents

      Currently each stakeholder prepares a strategy the way s/he feels it is right, and there are no "Strategic Planning Manuals/Guidelines".As a result, strategies available reflect a diversity in the methods of preparing and contents.

    8. The time lag

After policy formulation, it takes very long to have strategies and action plans operationalized

  1. Number of Objectives

    Most strategies have too many objectives

  2. Criteria for final strategy adoption

The standard criteria of approval do not seem to exist.

6.2 Key Lessons

    1. Externally influenced strategy

    In many cases strategies which are formulated on the basis of external pressure and influence on appear as if they have taken refuge in Tanzania. Put it differently, the strategies do not seem to have the owner. The strategies are either put in shelves after preparation or start being implemented without being sure of achieving the objectives.

    1. Necessity for Home-Grown Strategies

    Strategies which are home-grown and more dependent on home resources are likely to be sustainable (PRSP)

    1. The Magic of Ownership

    Ownership of strategies through stakeholders participation ensures transparency, accountability of implementation and results, and sustainability.

    1. Capacity Building at all levels

    Most strategies fail to take-off or be sustained for lack of capacity (human capacity, financial capacity, infrastructural capacity, information and communication capacity).There is need to improve the strategic planning capacity at all levels. This is likely to come through training. Specific training programmes will have to be developed for the purpose of enhancing capacity of designing, implementing and M & E. This capacity building programme should run through all levels down to the household level. Building capacity at lower level is important because that is where implementation actually takes place.

  1. Management Information System (MIS)

    Records, reporting and data are necessary in preparing, implementing and monitoring of performance. Resources are needed to enable analysis, comment and compile information which is to be passed on to decision makers and those responsible for implementing the strategy that is the stakeholders.

  1. Constraints Encountered

The constraints encountered when conducting the status review can be summarized as follows:-

  1. too much time was wasted in getting appointments for interviews to take place

  2. availability of strategy documents

  3. time for interviews and reviewing the strategies was too short.

  1. Meeting the Objectives

    8.1 The DAC Task Force Perspective

The following issues have been observed during the status review and will have to be confirmed during the dialogue process. The DAC Task Force will have to observe and provide assistance in the following:

    1. conduct information, education and communication (IEC) programme on national strategies for sustainable development at all levels

    2. capacity of preparing strategies for sustainable development is lacking at all levels (capabilities, infrastructure finance)

    3. sustainability conditions and criteria have to be built into nssds.

    4. the problems and needs of sustainable development have to be identified by Stakeholders. The role of donors should be more of facilitation and support

  1. The Next Steps

After the Thailand Mid Term Review Workshop, the Lead Team under the guidance of the Dialogue Steering Committee will undertake the final revision of the Status Review Report before embarking on Dialogues as clarified in the Methodology.

9.1 The Tanzania Perspective

Through status review the following issues have been identified:-

  1. presence of strategies without policies or vice versa

  2. the need to harmonize the method of preparing strategies

  3. the lack of capacity to prepare strategies

  4. the presence of conceptual problem of national strategies for sustainable development.

 

 


 


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