A safari company representing clients from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has confirmed that it has withdrawn from a deal on the Hadza tribe’s land in Tanzania. The company said in a statement, ‘The Eshkesh Safari Company has surrendered the rights it had secured in 2006 to manage and sustainably utilise the Yaeda Chini/Lake Eyasha region for hunting.’

Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP) is a non Governmental Advocacy Organization which promotes gender equality and equity principles, women’s empowerment and social transformation within Tanzania and beyond. Begun in 1993, TGNP has adopted the following strategies: participatory methodology and animation; networking coalition building and outreach, policy analysis and advocacy; action-oriented participatory research and collective action; scholarly analysis, media engagement and popular literature; and capacity building and training.

A high-level dialogue entitled Mobilizing Aid for Trade: Focus African countries will take place in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, the 1st and 2nd of October 2007. This event is organized by the African Development Bank, the World Trade Organization and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in cooperation with the World Bank and hosted by the Government of Tanzania.

ICT has a major role to play in knowledge development in many areas, but also offers the possibility to improve governance. Basic infrastructure is therefore indispensable. In Tanzania access to the internet has increased considerably in recent years. However, much has to be done to reduce costs and improve the quality of the services, since affordable access is key to development. In this paper, Liang Tan of IICD captured the lessons learned from setting up and managing IICD supported ruralcommunication access centres.

Underneath signs of economic progress in Tanzania, religious tensions persist, which threaten social cohesion and the political stability of the nation.

It was a case of petty arson turned media spectacle. Amidst the violence of the 2005 Zanzibar elections, the Janjaweed militia— loyalists to the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party—were charged with vandalizing and setting fire to a Kinuni residence by Civic United Front sympathizers. As cyberspace is a preferred platform for political protest throughout East Africa, one need look no further than the message boards of CUF activists to gauge the tone of this ideological duel. Speaking about the fire, one impassioned commentator writes, “Even the Holy Quran was not spared” beneath the image of a few charred pages.

Through a broader lens, coverage of the event serves the CUF in an effort to redress voting irregularities they claim have kept them from power since the introduction of multiparty democracy in the early 1990’s. Religious references add another layer of meaning. With Muslims accounting for 98% of Zanzibar’s population, this is not a typical case of Muslims vs. Non-Muslims. This is a case of secular Muslims against their radical brethren. Despite a shared creed, religion remains the symbolic fault line of Zanzibar’s political fallout expressed through CUF suspicions around of CCM pieties.

The religious dimension of politics in Zanzibar and throughout Tanzania cannot be overstated. A general survey of Tanzanian politics airs a religious subtext that, in the light of recent provocations, inches into the foreground, posing a significant challenge to the long-term stability of the nation. More specifically, the grievances not only of the CUF but of groups throughout the country are reaching a crescendo as many assert their rights as Muslims.

These tensions are not a recent apparition, but have grown steadily over decades. British colonial rule, in its support of Christian mission schools, impaired Muslim access to educational opportunities. Muslim apologists cite this as resulting not only in the under-representation of Muslims among Tanzanian’s educated elite, but also within the civil service and parastatal institutions. This process was cemented with the undoing political ties between Muslim organizations and the government under Nyerere. More recently, the participation of Tanzania in the US-led war on terror is interpreted as a means to suppress the political opposition by linking would-be competitors with terrorist activities.

While this substantiates perceived discrimination, there is much concrete evidence to support these suspicions. In 1992, the Tanzanian government acknowledged after many years the educational disparities between Christians and Muslims. Years later, only 20% of secondary school students in Dar es Salaam—a city where 80% of inhabitants claim Islam as their religion-- are Muslim.

The perceived marginalization of Muslims in Tanzanian can be juxtaposed with the enabling of other special interest groups. The multiplication in number and grandeur of churches in Dar Es Salaam occurs within the bounds of religious freedoms granted by the constitution. However, when read against the 2004 closure of the renowned al-Furquan Islamic Primary School and the suspension of the Islamic press, a confounding portrait of the “secular” state comes into focus. It is difficult to refute that a special brand of discrimination preoccupied with the habits of Muslims forms the crux of religious tension in Tanzania.

In the grand scheme, with macroeconomic indicators suggesting upward turn in the country’s fortunes, Tanzania appears to be doing well. While we can all look with pride on its successes, enthusiasm over recent advances in Tanzania must be read cautiously against religious tensions percolating beneath. The consolidation of economic gains in the long term will require serious efforts to redress persisting disparities.
Aaliyah Bilal

* Aaliyah Bilal is a masters student at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Poor farmers in Tanzania are using modern information and communication technologies like mobile phones and even the Internet to get access to market information, and to learn how to build better and more collaborative market chains from producer to consumer. Market “spies”, known locally as shu shu shus, investigate prices and other aspects of local markets, then use their mobile phones to report the information back to their villages. Soon they might be using SMS to access Internet-based databases of locally-relevant market information.

In three months Tanzania will be braced with one of the world's fastest, cheapest and most reliable communication technologies. This comes after the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) granted an International and National Application Services license to a newly registered firm (wireless phone and internet Service Company) known as WBS (iBurst) Tanzania.

The African Women’s Development and Communication Network held a two day regional workshop on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights in Tanzania from July 31- August 1, 2007 with the aim of supporting African women organizations to act and advocate around reproductive and sexual rights and influence national and policy frameworks to protect and promote reproductive and sexual rights.

Education experts have welcomed the Tanzanian government’s pledge to hire more teachers in the 2007-2008 financial year to improve the quality of education in the country. “Many will agree that the most important thing in education is the interaction between motivated, competent teachers and their students," Suleiman Sumra, a retired professor of education and researcher with Hakielimu, an NGO dealing with educational issues, told IRIN.

Tanzania's Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB), through its Directorate of Research Control and Statistics, will engage a consultant to conduct the National Government and Corruption Survey (NGACS). The survey is part of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy and Action Plan (NACSAP II) 2006-2010 and is intended to develop empirical information that will be discussed, analysed and used to help the government, civil society and the private sector to formulate policies and programmes to strengthen good governance.

The Tanzanian government has announced plans to nearly double the number of people on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment by the end of 2007. The East African country, where an estimated 1.4 million people are living with the HI virus, has 77,066 patients on the life-prolonging medication; the government intends to raise the number to 150,000 by December 2007, and to 200,000 by the end of 2008.

With the return of peace and stability in Burundi, the Tanzanian President, Jakaya Kikwete, sees no reason why thousands of Burundian refugees should remain in his country. President Kikwete, who flew to the Burundian capital Bujumbura, disclosed that all Burundian refugee camps will be closed by December 2007.

Poverty, inadequate investment in healthcare services, lack of knowledge about maternal health and pregnancy-related emergencies are some of the limitations aggravating the problem of obstetric fistula in Tanzania, according to a new report. Obstetric fistula is a hole that forms between the bladder and vagina or between the rectum and vagina during prolonged and obstructed childbirth.

Authorities in Tanzania have expressed concern over the large numbers of pupils, mostly girls, who drop out of school because of pregnancy, teenage marriage, child labour or truancy. President Jakaya Kikwete said the number of primary school drop-outs rose to 44,742 in 2006 from 32,469 the previous year.

Millions of dollars worth of timber revenue is being lost each year in Tanzania because of poor governance and rampant corruption in the forestry sector, according to a new report by TRAFFIC International.

The Hadzabe indigenous people of northern Tanzania are facing "a direct and serious threat to the survival" as their hunting and gathering grounds are falling prey to powerful safari organisers. Royals from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and their UAE Safari Ltd count on Tanzanian government support to drive out the Hadzabe, also called "Bushmen".

The Education Coordinator will lead a dynamic team of professionals dedicated to the education of vulnerable children. S/he will develop an innovative curriculum for the children in Amani's non-formal education program (school at Amani), ensure that each child's education is prioritised in his/her care and follow-up, and make certain that consideration is given to each child's individual needs, interests, and abilities.

The MS Training Centre for Development Cooperation (MS-TCDC) offers courses which strengthen the internal governance of civil society organisations and other courses which enable organisations to work with communities and to engage with government and private sector in policy making. There are three new courses: Project Planning and Management course; the Participatory Forest Management course; and the Basic Financial Introduction course. The courses target primarily people and organisations working in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, and secondarily those from Zambia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Somaliland.

REPOA’s Research Report 06.3 examines the extent to which microfinance institutions in Tanzania contribute to poverty reduction. The loan process and technical support provided by micro-finance institutions are studied, as well as some characteristics of the loan recipients and their businesses. The research was conducted on 37 rural and urban micro-finance institutions from four regions and over 350 clients.

At least 109 Tanzanians have become victims of the rift valley fever since the outbreak of the disease in January this year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed. The contagious viral disease is spread by the aedes mosquito. The mosquito infects animal blood and organs thus transmitting the virus to the milk.