Contract negotiations can save Tanzania

JuaKali · 2008-10-22T11:59:24+00:00

The UN resident coordinator in Tanzania, Oscar Fernandez Taranco, has said that one of the key challenges of the United Nations system in Tanzania is to help the government build capacity in contract negotiation. Speaking during a small chat with a select media personnel group in Dar es Salaam yesterday, he said the United Nations was ready to bring in the best practitioners so as to empower the government to negotiate the best deals for Tanzania. ``Better negotiated contracts can bring in better results than all the donors` money. We (the United Nations) can bring in the best mining and energy experts so as to support the government`s capacity in negotiations with the private sector. We do not mean to exploit the private sector, but only to help ensure that the contracts are fair.`` Taranco said that external resources were essential for Tanzania, but Tanzania had to become independent at some stage. The UN envoy was speaking ahead of UN Day celebrations, which will take place on Friday. He particularly emphasized the significance of ongoing UN reforms in Tanzania, which has been chosen as one of the pilot countries, where all UN resident agencies operate as One at country level. The One UN Programe gives special focus in wealth creation, employment and economic empowerment. The envoy was asked to explain why the United Nations was not doing much more to reduce maternal and infant deaths in Tanzania. Every year, 45,000 newborn babies die before they are even a month old. This comprises about 47 percent of all infant deaths in Tanzania. Responding to the question, Taranco said: ``These are exactly the things that we need to come back to constantly?how to translate policy into reality. Operationalising of policy has much to do with national priorities. Do we have proper growth? Are we focused only in certain areas like mining and tourism? How do we improve the role of the private sector? We need not to have a scattering of priorities but a focused approach. We have to advocate policies that bring such (infant death) rates down. It is not how much the UN is giving, but how many ideas it is giving to solve the problem. We are not the development partners!`` Taranco said that (basket) budget funding allowed the government tremendous power to execute its development policies. ``The UN has the moral responsibility to ensure that human dimensions of the development programmes are absorbed into the projects. We can convince the donors to do things differently.`` Earlier, Taranco took time to explain UN reforms of Delivering as One as currently practiced in Tanzania for one and half years. He said the move could promote the paradigm of change in Tanzania and also bring about change in the ways of priorities and focus. He said all the resident UN agencies in Tanzania were now operating One Fund, making funding more coherent, transparent and predictable. Towards the end of last year, Norway, Spain, Netherlands and Ireland became the first countries to donate to the newly established One UN Fund in Tanzania, with contributions amounting to USD 13 million. By January, 75 percent of the One Programme funding gap of 30 million will be covered by the One Fund contributions. Tanzania requested to be a pilot country of One UN reform through the then Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Dr Asha-Rose Migiro, who is now the Deputy Un secretary general. Government ownership is central to the UN initiative. SOURCE: Guardian

Thread starter JuaKali
Start date Oct 22, 2008

JuaKali

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Contract negotiations can save Tanzania

JuaKali

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