“By hosting a Pan-African organization
and leading by example in investment climate reform, we could
demonstrate our commitment to improving regional collaboration and as a
member of SADC and the EAC, we felt strongly that building this
outward-looking stance was important to our future competitiveness,” he
said on Wednesday during the launch of ICF Completion Report in Dar es
Salaam.
The premier said the ICF programmes were demand-led and they involved a public-private partnership approach to projects.
“Projects are identified and launched
upon government request and invitation, with high-level political
support and local ownership... it is the only way to ensure that results
are achieved and can be sustained,” he added.
Due to ICF presence in the country, the
Premier said, Tanzania found the experience being useful in building her
understanding of the private sector.
“Over the past nine years, the depth of
collaboration between the public and private sectors has increased
significantly, even in programmes which are not connected to ICF, which
just shows the catalytic impact of this approach,” he said.
For instance, the Premier said, ICF has
been working with the Government of Tanzania on a pilot project to build
the capacity of SMEs so that they can move from the informal to the
formal economy.
“There are 500 entrepreneurs who
received training and mentorship jointly funded by the Government of
Tanzania, ICF and the Eastern and Southern African Universities Research
Programme.
It specifically focused on entrepreneurs
operating in the fisheries industry, retail trade and wholesale
services in both Dar es Salaam and Mwanza. The project was designed to
build the capacity of these entrepreneurs in order for them to operate
more efficiently,” he added.
“Through training and mentoring, the
entrepreneurs were equipped with skills that would allow them to
register their business, formalize operations, grow their business and
manage record-keeping and accounting.
In this way, they could finally graduate
from the informal to the formal sector and start to b
He urged the officials in various
countries that ICF had been operating to take time and study their
models as a way of quickening economic growth.
“We have enough models in ICT,
Infrastructure, improvements in customs administration, land management
and the judicial systems. The challenge is yours, take them and use it
to further development. We have talked a lot into independence, we can’t
keep on talking into growth,” he said.
uild their
businesses as they had always wanted to.
He urged other government officials and
other peers across the continent to ask themselves what more can they do
to accelerate and scale up the ICF important work so that they can
continue to improve the lives and livelihoods of millions of people
across Africa.
Earlier on, former Tanzanian President
and ICF Co-Chair and Chair for International Relations, Hon Benjamin
Mkapa told the participants that there’s a need for people to change
their attitude towards the private sector. “We need to appreciate the
role of the private sector because they have the legitimacy to
participate in economic development of our countries.”
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