Promoting good governance, accountability and political support to harness the demographic dividend in Tanzania Key messages Good governance is a key pillar of Tanzania’s development Vision 2025, and it seeks to ensure a strong adherence to rule of law and the absence of corruption. Corruption is widespread in the country and the civil society is generally inefficient and ineffective. To strengthen measures aimed at enhancing good governance and accountability in the country, Tanzania should: strengthen the economic and corporate governance frameworks to instil confidence and trust among domestic and foreign investors; reinforce public sector management for efficient delivery of public goods and services; strengthen accountability institutions, empower civil society, and improve monitoring, evaluation and performance management measures in the civil service; and encourage the participation of women and youth in decision making in order to harness a maximum demographic dividend.
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Promoting good governance, accountability and political support to harness the demographic dividend in Tanzania
Acknowledgment This Policy Brief is derived from the report of the Tanzania Demographic Dividend study, which was supported by Pathfinder International-Tanzania, with technical contribution from the Department of Economics, University of Dar es Salaam, and the African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP).
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Context Good governance and the rule of law are key pillars of Tanzania’s development Vision 2025, and they seek to create a society characterized by “desirable moral and cultural uprightness”; “strong adherence to and respect for the rule of law”; and the “absence of corruption and other vices”.1 To ensure that good governance is instilled in the country, the National Framework for Good Governance was developed in 1999, it envisaged a broad-based national partnership for the development of good governance that included central and local governments, the private sector and faith-based and civil society organisations. The framework defines ‘good governance’ as the exercise of official powers in the management of the country’s resources in an effort to increase and utilise such resources for the betterment of life.2 Governance shapes the content of economic and social policies and their implementation mechanisms. Governance also ensures the allocation of resources for productive investment in economic growth and human capital development. Improvement in governance is credited with driving Tanzania’s high economic growth rates in the past decade.3 Governance is a cross-cutting ingredient that is essential for harnessing the demographic dividend, as it ensures a conducive environment for the delivery of services and promotes effective, accountable and responsive systems. The demographic dividend is the economic benefit that arises from a significant increase in the ratio of working age adults relative to young dependents that results from a rapid decline in fertility and mortality.4 To earn a significant demographic dividend, investments that help accelerate fertility decline and change in age structure should be accompanied by simultaneous strategic investments in education and skills development, public health, economic reforms that enhance job creation and enhanced governance and accountability measures. This brief highlights key policy and programme options that can help promote good governance and accountability in order to propel Tanzania to harness its demographic dividend. The brief is derived from a study carried out to assess the potential demographic dividend that Tanzania can earn under various policy scenarios.5 The study showed that the country’s income per capita can increase to USD 11,656.6 by 2055 if Tanzania unleashes its full potential and simultaneously prioritizes reforms and investments in economic, demographic and human capital development and facilitate a reduction in fertility to about 2 children per woman.
Tanzania’s performance on key governance indicators The country has established measures aimed at enhancing efficiency, effectiveness, accountability and transparency in governance. These include the amendment of the Public Procurement Act (2016), the enactment of the Access to Information Act (2016), enactment of the Public Service Act (2002) and the formulation of an enhanced National Anti-corruption Strategy and Action Plan (2008). The Civil society has also become active in governance and has helped to monitor public expenditure and service delivery. Since the introduction of multi-party politics, Tanzania has held five successive general elections, and the country has largely been stable and peaceful. Measures have been adopted to address gender disparities in political participation, with the constitution providing that not less than 30% of members of the National Assembly and the House of Representatives shall be women. Tanzania has also formulated a decentralization policy to empower local communities and promote a broad-based grassroots participation in decision-making and implementation. 1 Planning Commission. (1999). The Tanzania Development Vision 2025. Dar es Salaam. 2 United Republic of Tanzania, 1999. The national framework on good governance Steering Committee on Good Governance, President’s Office, Planning Commission, Dar es Salaam : [1999 3 Mdee A., and Thorley L., 2016. Good governance, local government, accountability and service delivery in Tanzania: Exploring the context for creating a local governance performance index. Working Paper 2. A n ESRC Research Project 4 Bloom, D., David Canning, & Sevilla, J. (2003). The Demographic Dividend: A New Perspective on the Economic Consequences of Population Change, by, RAND MR-1274-WFHF/DLPF/RF, 2002, 100 pp., ISBN: 0-8330-2926-6. Santa Monica, CA, USA. 5 Pathfinder-Tanzania, UDSM, AFIDEP, 2017. Prospects and challenges of harnessing demographic dividend in Tanzania. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
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In spite of the progress, Tanzania still performs poorly on good governance relative to a number of countries in the sub-region including Kenya and Rwanda. The country’s performance on the Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) has experienced a negative trend since 2011, falling from the 15th rank in 2013 to 18th in 2015.6 Although most measures on governance and accountability are based on perception surveys, measures such as the Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG), the Transparency International’s Corruption Index and the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) have been successfully used to monitor governance in many countries including Tanzania. The main governance indicators in Tanzania that have been measured over the years include corruption, rule of law, political participation and government effectiveness. Corruption Corruption is the abuse of public power for private gain. Corruption is pervasive in Tanzania and the country ranks as one of the worst performing countries on several corruption indices. Tanzania ranked 116th out of 176 countries in Transparency International’s 2016 Corruption Index.7 The country also ranked below the sub-Saharan African average on corruption control in the 2015 Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) (Figure 1). The sectors most affected by corruption in Tanzania include the judiciary, police force, public services, public procurement, tax administration system and the extractive industry. It is estimated that 20% of the government budget is lost each fiscal year through corruption. This deprives the government of the resources required to invest in the economy. Corruption also discourages private sector investment and increases the cost of doing business. Since taking over the presidency, H.E John Pombe Magufuli has shown an unprecedented determination to fight that corruption which has been increasing the cost of doing business in the country and creating inefficiency and wastage of resources. His efforts have borne some fruits, with the 2017 Ease of Doing Business Report showing that Tanzania moved 12 positions up, from 144 in 2016 to 132 in 2017.8 Figure 1: Tanzania’s percentile rank on corruption control relative to SSA and UMICs
Source: www.govindicators.org 6 Mo Ibrahim Foundation. (2016). The Ibrahim Index of African Governance: 2007-2016. 7 Transparency International, 2017. Corruption Perception Index 2016. https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2016 8 World Bank. (2017). Doing Business 2017: Equal Opportunity for All. Washington, DC: World Bank. DOI: 10.1596/978-1-4648-0948-4. License: Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0 IGO.
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Safety and rule of law Safety and rule of law are key components of governance which focus on the extent to which rules are enforced, particularly regarding contractual disputes and property rights as well as the likelihood of crime and violence. Safety and rule of law depend on an efficient and independent judiciary and a pre-emptive security system. Tanzania has remained stable and peaceful in a region characterized by political instability, civil conflict and terrorism. The country’s score on the National Security sub-category of the Mo Ibrahim Index has been impressive, ranking 13th on the continent in 2015. However, Tanzania’s performance on personal safety is not as good, ranking 20th in the latest Ibrahim Index3. This may be attributed partly to inefficiencies and inadequacies in the police force to prevent crime. Tanzania’s performance in the rule of law sub-category of the Ibrahim Index has deteriorated slightly, declining from a score of 60.8 in 2000 to 59.4 in 2015. The rule of law rank, however, deteriorated significantly from the 45th percentile in 2005 to 39th in 2015. Government effectiveness Government effectiveness is a measure of the quality of public services and the quality of the civil service and its independence from political pressures. Economic growth and increased revenue over the past decade has allowed for the expansion of public services such as education, health and water supply in Tanzania. But quantitative expansion has been accompanied by qualitative deterioration in some social services4. For instance, many children in Tanzania complete primary education without basic numeracy and literacy skills. The 2016 certificate of secondary education examination results shows that only 27% of the students qualify for a place in form five. In health service delivery, Tanzania has done very well in reducing child mortality but much less well on maternal mortality. The limited progress in maternal mortality is affected by the poor quality of service provided by public health facilities.9 Tanzania has implemented several civil service reforms in the last two decades, with a focus to ensure that the civil service delivers quality, effective and efficient services. But these reforms have chalked modest success in improving service quality and efficiency. Service delivery in the civil service is still characterized by too much bureaucracy and red tape, nepotism, corruption and political interference7. The country’s rank on the government effectiveness indicator in the WGI actually declined between 2005 and 2015, dropping from the 41st percentile rank in 2005 to the 31st rank in 2015 (Figure 2). Government ineffectiveness is a major obstacle to potential private and public investments that can create employment. The President recently took a number of actions including dismissals, with the aim of ridding the civil service of its inefficiency and ineffectiveness.
9 Tanzania Development Research Group. (2012). Tanzania Governance Review 2012: Transparency with Impunity? Dar es Salaam.
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Figure 2: Tanzania’s percentile rank on government effectiveness relative to SSA and UMICs
Source: www.govindicators.org
Key policy options for good governance and accountability The governance issues above show that Tanzania needs to urgently enhance its efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability in governance as well as promoting the rule of law if it’s to harness the demographic dividend. Harnessing the demographic dividend will require better governance in the key sectors of health, education and the economy. The country needs to implement the following policy options: 1. Increase financial allocation to the judiciary and strengthen its independence from political interference to ensure courts swiftly and impartially decide on cases. 2. Strengthen the institutions of accountability including the Public Procurement Authority, the Ethics Secretariat, the Controller and Auditor General and the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau to successfully prosecute cases in court. Address weaknesses in the anti-corruption legislative framework, in particular, address the issue of appointment and reporting of chief executive officers of the anti-corruption institutions. 3. Increase supervision, monitoring and performance management measures to enhance the quality of public services. This should include promoting a culture of openness, ethics and transparency, 4. Establishing a visionary and developmental leadership with a technical capacity in the civil service, and ensuring that the service is well-resourced to deliver quality services and implement government policy efficiently. 5. Support the development and operations of civil society organizations that demand and foster a culture of openness, ethics and transparency in both the public and private sectors. 6. Implement policies and enforce laws that empower women and increase their participation in the design and implementation of government programmes. This should also include creating an enabling environment for the full involvement of youth in decision making 7. Increase governance and accountability in the extraction of natural resources and management of government revenue from the extractive sector to avoid the “natural resource curse” observed in many other African countries. This should involve avoiding being over-dependent on mining and mineral resources.
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