D.

A II (TNC)
DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
LECTURED BY MR. KAPINGA

DISCUSSION ON: MILLENIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN TANZANIA

Prepared by: SHABAN ABDULLAZIZ HAMDUN Reg no: 1371N/DA1.2010

Qn 2.

With examples discuss the Millennium Development Goals and what are challenges facing the realization of these goals in Tanzania.

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the eight international development commitments commonly accepted to be achieved by the International Community, to effectively sustain social and economic progress in all countries. The MDGs were adopted from The Millennium year 2000 broken down into 21 quantifiable targets that are measured by 60 indicators with common ending 2015. Mainly, the Goals are to be effected in all 193 United Nations member states and at least 23 International Organizations in which agreed with it. For the case of United Republic of Tanzania, it has been a member for United Nations rooting from two countries of United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. Tanganyika was a member immediately after independence 14th December 1961. Also Zanzibar was a member from 16th December 1963. Following the ratification on 26th April 1964 of article of union between these two countries, they continued as a single member changing the name to the United Republic of Tanzania on 1st November 1964. As to other United Nations member states, The United Republic of Tanzania also have to implement the outlined Goals. To the extent of the discussion the following are the declared Millennium Development Goals and the Challenges facing realization in Tanzania. Eradicating Extreme Poverty and Hunger: This is a goal by which forecasts on reduction and further eradicating poverty. The goal has been split into halving the proportion of people living on less than $1, achieving decent employment for women, man and young people and reducing the proportion of people who suffer from hunger. The above first goal for Tanzanian context, has been putting some efforts in achieving but still it faces some challenges; The major challenge lies on the nature of poverty which mainly prevails in rural: The rural population accounts for over three quarters of the whole, depends mainly on agricultural activities. Performance of the agricultural sector has not been satisfactory in terms of growth, being the slowest growing sector. Public and private sector investment

in agriculture has remained small and inadequate despite making policies to promote development. Support to agro-processing industry has also been modest, with the end result being agricultural exports comprising mainly of unprocessed primary products. These products face declining terms of trade in the world markets thus undermining incentives for small scale producers. Also there are challenges basing on food security on halving hunger: The efforts to combat hunger are closely related to the issue of food security, which is a function of production, accessibility and utilization of food resources. Taking into consideration the function of food production in Tanzania is in underproduction, there is still a wide area inaccessible uncovered or covered by transport systems but poor condition, while the available food resources are underutilized due to factors such as Inability to Invest in agriculture and food processing industry. Achieve Universal Primary Education: The target forecasts on ensuring all children boy and girls obtain their preliminary and primary educations by 2015. It emphasizes on unbiased enrollment of male and female, ensuring their completion on their primary education and hence having proportional of male and female literacy of 1524 age. The main challenges falls under factors such us: Small amount of remuneration to the teachers causing great shift from teaching to other professions, which result to large number of pupils in relation to teachers the minimum being 52:1 which is not acceptable for the matter of understanding and overpopulation of schools caused by lesser number of school comparably to very large number of children ready for school. Promote Gender Equality And Empower Women: By this target, it is agreed to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably 2005 and at all levels by 2015. In practicability, the target targets on rationalizing girls and boys in primary and tertiary education, which shall bring about share of women in wage employment, hence empowering women to have influence on decision making by giving chances to the parliament. Despite the supportive environment the above goal, many challenges are depicted such as: Gender discrimination and harassment of women of town and rural areas, less access to basic services such as health and education. Others include low participation of women in decision-making, greater risk and vulnerability of women and girls to HIV infections. A major challenge remains in the enforcement of gender sensitive laws due to prevailing negative attitudes and norms towards women. Reduce Child Mortality: The target forecasts to reduce child mortality by two thirds from 1990 to 2015. Under this target, the aim is to tackle mortality ranging from infant (under 1 year) to under five children and striving to reduce the proportion of 1year-old children immunized against measles.

With all efforts made, still there are challenges in Tanzania context as caused by under funding which affects physical infrastructures and procurement of equipment and hospital instruments, unavailability of drugs and care, medical technology is changing rapidly while the coping mechanism is not yet in place. Other factors affecting child survival include education status of the family, a very small amount of earning and others. Improve Maternal Health: Also this goal has been set intending to rationalize maternal health in which it is very poor in third world countries especially in Africa and Part of Asia. The target being reduction of maternal mortality by ensuring proportion of births attended by skilled health personnel, also achieving universal access to reproductive health on contraceptive prevalence rate, adolescent birth rate, antenatal care coverage and unmet need for family planning Considering the challenges to the above goal in context of Tanzania; includes the improper proportion of medical officers and facilities to the number of mothers in need of the services, caused by improper funding to the field of medicine and the challenge of physical outnumbered health centers this challenge is depicted on the large number of maternal patients compared to the available centers and the situation of which health centers are concentrated in towns rather than rural areas. Combating Contaminated and Eruptive Diseases: This goal has been targeted on the common diseases that harmful prevail to the society; they include HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other major diseases. There are three targets which have been set ranging from striving to halve and reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS; achieving universal access to treatment for all those who need it and halving and reversing the incident of malaria and other diseases. The main likely challenges to the above goal in Tanzania context are seen on: Despite the available HIV knowledge spread mainly in urban, there is a clear impracticability of the obtained knowledge due to cultural and religious beliefs such as the use of condoms; but also there is a very wide dark knowledge of HIV in rural villages; there is also challenges on eradication of malaria as to failure to understand and destroy the sources of mosquitoes rather advocating use of nets and malaria dosages. Ensure Environmental Sustainability: As we all know the importance of our environments, the UN has outlined Goal intending to tackle preservation of the blesses given to the society. There are four targets set on the goal such as integrating the principles of sustainable development into country policy; reducing biodiversity loss achieving a significant reduction in the rate of loss; halving the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation; and to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slumdwellers. In the Tanzania context, there are a lot of challenges on achieving the above goal such as: Loss of biodiversity and wildlife habitat; destruction of coastal, marine and wetland ecosystems; land degradation and declining fertility, unsound disposal of plastic materials for example in Dar es salaam city; increased deforestation and forest
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degradation, which has led to deterioration of ecological systems with resulting negative impact on soil fertility, water flow and biodiversity; Unsustainable mining activities, especially by small scale miners and many others. Developing a Global Partnership For Development: It is an important goal addressed by the MDGs clearly state that there should be an open and free global capital movement. The main targets are set on develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial systems; which shall influence dealing comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable; n cooperation with developing countries on developing and implementing strategies for decent and productive work; and in cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications. Also there are some challenges depicted on the above goal in Tanzania context ranging from: Export barriers such as high tariff and non-tariff barriers in the markets of developed countries; unequal exchange on extracted valuable resources like Mineral such as gold, Tanzanite, diamond by which the government earns very less amount of return; also massive destruction of the environment, example taking off of even the extracted soils to abroad and many others. In conclusion, the identified MDGs can be reached by the developed countries more that underdeveloped ones because there is a greater need of funds to take over. The ratio of achievements will depend much on who has what to uplift the goals despite the conditional contributions provided by United Nations and the world powers.