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KEYNOTE SPEECH BY DR. JAKAYA MRISHO KIKWETE,

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA,
DURING THE USAID FORUM ON FRONTIERS IN
DEVELOPMENT: ENDING EXTREME POVERTY, 19
TH
SEPTEMBER, 2014, WASHINGTON, D.C
Honourable Dr. Rajiv Shah, USAID Administrator;
Honourable Mr. Mark Diop, Vice President of the World
Bank;
Distinguished Participants;
Ladies and Gentlemen;
Allow me to begin by thanking you Dr. Rajiv Shah for
inviting me to participate in this Forum and for afording me
the opportunity to share my thoughts on its very important
theme of Ending Extreme Poverty. I commend the USAID for
initiating this debate, and I hope participants will come up
with pertinent proposals about ways and means to end this
human degrading condition of our time. For those of us who
live with this reality in our countries, it is heartwarming,
indeed, to see that there are friends out here who care about
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the plight of the poorest and are ready to do what it takes to
erase this scourge from the face of this planet.
Distinguished Participants;
Ladies and Gentlemen;
The World Bank Report on End Extreme Poverty and
Promote Shared Growth (2013) tells us that globally poverty
has declined rapidly over the past three decades since 1990.
In this regard, some 700 million people have moved above
the US$ 1.25 poverty line but about 1.2 billion still live
under conditions of extreme poverty. Out of the 1.2 billion
people, more than 750 million live on less than US$ 1.0 a
day and nearly 150 million others live on less than US$ 0.50
a day. Similarly, around 800 million are faced with hunger or
have inadequate food supply and, 500 million of them,
sufer from chronic malnutrition.
Ladies and Gentlemen;
It is good to note that the world has been able to achieve
the Millennium Development Goal No.1 of reducing by
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half the number of people who live under extreme poverty.
Indeed, poverty rate in developing countries has been
reduced from 43.1 percent in 1990 to 20.6 percent by 2010.
This achievement shows that it is possible to eradicate
poverty in the world. However, this achievement has not
been uniform across the developing world. China and India
accounted for most of the success and nearly half of the poor
live in 20 countries in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and
East Asia and the Pacifc.
Ladies and Gentlemen;
The challenge of overcoming extreme poverty is an
overwhelming one in Africa. Africa is home to 33 of the 48
worlds least developed countries (LDCs). Moreover, in 2010
more than one-third of Sub-Saharan African countries had
an extreme poverty rate of more than 50 percent. Among
them, 12 countries had an extreme poverty rate of above 60
percent and 4 countries that are fragile and afected by
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conficts were above 80 percent. This condition has not
changed much today as we speak.
Ladies and Gentlemen;
Clearly, political stability is an important factor in the
fght against extreme poverty. Conficts worsen the poverty
situation. Conficts disrupt economic activities, scare away
investments and cause destruction of property including
productive assets as well as social and economic
infrastructure. Unfortunately, Africa has had an unfair share
of conficts. Very few African countries have enjoyed
uninterrupted peace in the fve decades of Africas
independence from colonial rule. Of the 33 least developed
countries from Africa 25 have gone through some form of
confict. Even the non LDCs in Africa have not been spared.
Consequently, lack of peace and stability has been a critical
factor in Africas slow pace towards poverty reduction.
Paradoxically, even those countries which have had no
conficts have not done very well either. The pace of poverty
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reduction has been muted. In my view, this is very much a
function of the economic policies pursued, in the frst two
and half, decades since independence. They caused
stagnation of economic growth and some economies actually
shrank thus aggravating the poverty situation among the
people. The turnaround began in the second half of the
1990s after the economic reforms introduced in the mid
1980s began to take efect. The extent of the turnaround
depended on the success of the reforms. Likewise, the
extent of poverty reduction depended on the success of the
reform agenda and the level of poverty the country was in at
the beginning of the reforms. It also depended on external
environment in particular the global economic architecture
which has not been so kind to poor nations and poor people
in the developing world.
Ladies and Gentlemen;
My dear country Tanzania is a typical example of a
country that enjoyed uninterrupted peace and stability since
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independence yet we are one of the LDCs from 1971 when
LDCs classifcation started. Besides a hostile global
environment, economic policies pursued soon after
independence which did not succeed has a big hand in this
state of afairs. As a matter of fact, the economy declined to
dangerous lows. Things began to change after the
introduction of economic reforms from the 1980s. We have
stayed the cause of reforms ever since with remarkable
success. The country is now enjoying strong macro-
economic performance with the last decade being
exceptionally successful.
Overall economic growth has increase from an average
of 3.5 percent in the 1990s to the average of about 7 percent
over the last decade. Despite this growth, poverty reduction
has not been correspondingly impressive. In the last two
decades income poverty declined from 39 percent in 1990 to
28.2 percent in 2012, a decline of about 11 percent only. This
explains why we will not be able to meet the MDG target of
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halving extreme poverty below the 1990 baseline by 2015.
However, we have been successful with regard to reducing
by a half the proportion of population living below the
national food poverty line. This declined from 21.6 percent
in 1990 to 9.7 percent in 2012, a decline of about 12 percent.
Distinguished Participants;
Ladies and Gentlemen;
Our income poverty reduction eforts have not borne
the expected results mainly because our growth has not been
high enough in sectors that support the majority of the
people, especially the poor. The fast growing sectors and
their ten-year average growth rates (2004 2013) were the
following: (1) Services (8.0%) driven by Telecommunication
(20.2%), Financial Services (10.8%) and Trade (8.2%); (2)
Industry (8.5%) comprising of Construction (9.6%),
Manufacturing (8.6%) and Mining (8.2%). Unfortunately,
agriculture, which supports about 75 percent of our
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population in terms of employment and livelihood, grew at
an average of only 4.2 percent in the last decade.
Ladies and Gentlemen;
The low growth in agriculture explains why the pace of
poverty reduction has not been fast enough as expected. We
have been taking action to transform and modernize our
agriculture as exemplifed by a number of programmes and
initiatives being implemented in the country. The
Agriculture Sector Development Programme (ASDP), Kilimo
Kwanza and SAGCOT are among such initiatives being
undertaken. Noticeable progress is being registered and the
future of Tanzanias agriculture looks promising.
Overall, in our quest to promote growth, development
and eradicate poverty comprehensively and in focused
manner the Tanzania Development Vision 2025 (TDV 2025)
was conceived in the late 1990s and unveiled in the year
2000. The Vision, envisages totransform Tanzania from a
least developed country in the year 2000 to a middle income
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country by the year 2025. Tanzania will then be a country
characterized by high quality livelihoods, peace, stability,
unity and good governance; a well-educated and learning
society; and a competitive semi-industrialized economy
capable of producing growth and shared benefts.
Ladies and Gentlemen;
After coming into ofce in December 2005, I undertook
to implement the Vision in earnest. The frst thing we did
was an evaluation of the implementation status of the vision
and then plan for its implementation for the remaining
period. Subsequently we developed long term perspective
plan for the remaining 15 years of the Vision. We decided to
divide it in three medium term development plans of fve
years each.
We are implementing the frst Five Year Development
Plan (FYDP 2011/12 2015/16), whose overarching objective
has been implementing measures that are geared at
unleashing the growth potentials of Tanzania. Specifcally,
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we are aiming at addressing infrastructural bottlenecks
particularly in energy, ports, roads and railways; increasing
the pool of skilled labor; advancing science, technology and
innovation as well as information and communication
technology (ICT); improve the general business environment
and enhance productivity in agriculture.
In the second Five Year Development Plan (FYDP
2016/17 2020/21) we will focus on nurturing an industrial
economy through the development of a vibrant industrial
sector. The focus will be on natural gas based industries,
agro-processing industries and medium technologies
industries. We shall aim at creating jobs by promoting
industrial sub-sectors with high potentials for employment
creation.
Ladies and Gentlemen;
In the third Five Year Development Plan (FYDP
2021/22 2025/26) our focus will be on realizing
competitiveness of Tanzania in the regional and the world
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market place. We will focus on improving competitiveness
in all sectors, especially manufacturing and services so as to
ensure that manufactured products from our economy are
successfully exported. The target of this plan is to transform
Tanzania into a manufacturing hub in the region whilst
making sure that all the gains made in social services, the
business environment, infrastructure development and
productivity are consolidated and advanced.
Ladies and Gentlemen;
Apart from high focus on transforming and
modernizing agriculture during the implementation of the
frst Five Year Development Plan, we have accorded high
priority to infrastructure development, particularly the
transport subsector such as roads, railways, ports, airports
and marine transport. The reason for doing this was to deal
with one critical constraint to growth and development in
the country. It will be easier to facilitate access to inputs and
markets, reduce transportation costs and costs of doing
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business. Signifcant progress has been made in this regard
with roads where 6,500 kilometers are already paved and
11,174 kilometers are under construction. Our objective is to
connect all regions in the country with paved roads is being
realized. Also, we have been investing heavily in improving
rural roads such that over 80 percent are now passable
throughout the year.
With regard to electricity priority is on increasing
energy generation and distribution. The aim is to catalyze
economic activities and improve living standards of our
people since energy is key to development and decent life.
We intend to increase electricity generation from the current
1,478MW to 2,780MW by 2015. Correspondingly, we are
expanding electricity distribution and in doing so, the
percentage of households and businesses with access to
electricity has increased from 10 percent in 2005 to 36
percent currently.
Ladies and Gentlemen;
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In an efort to transform our countrys economy from
that of being an exporter of primary products to one that
exports value added products. We aim to export more
manufactured, processed or semi processed goods from our
agricultural products, minerals and other natural resources
of which Tanzania is richly endowed. Therefore, we are
giving special attention to industrialization. Value addition
through industrialization will stimulate more production in
raw material source sectors. Also, it will help create jobs and
increase employment and incomes thus lifting more people
out of poverty.
Ladies and Gentlemen;
To ensure employability of Tanzanians particularly our
young people, we have, as a matter of priority, expanded
education opportunities at all levels from primary,
secondary, vocational to university level. We have more
young boys and girls in primary and secondary schools and
young men and women in universities than any other time in
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history. We have increased training and skills development
opportunities at various specialized and vocational schools.
We have decided to do so because we know the power of
education in moving communities out of poverty. It is a
game changer.
We have, also, increased investment in health care
development which is an important factor in human capital
development. It is beginning to pay dividends as evidenced
by improved human development situation in the country.
More and more Tanzanians have access to health and almost
all the major killer diseases are on the decline. Life
expectancy has increased from 51 years in 2002 to 61 years in
2012. Due to improvement of health system, our country has
also recorded signifcant gains in child survival rates as
measured by reduction of infant and under fve mortality
rates. Infant Mortality Rate has declined from 115 per 1,000
live births in 1988 to 21 per 1,000 live births over the in 2013.
On the other hand, Under Five Mortality rates have
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improved from 231 per 1,000 live births 1988 to 54 per 1,000
live births in 2013. Defnitely, these are signifcant gains in
human development.
With regard to education, after succeeding in increasing
access to education at all levels our preoccupation now is on
improving the quality of education. Here, also, we have been
making signifcant progress on availability of teachers, text
books and other teaching aids. However, we need to do
more on teachers housing and science laboratories.
Ladies and Gentlemen;
In our eforts to promote growth and eradicate poverty
our experience has taught us a few important lessons which
I want to share with you. First, with the right policy mix,
appropriate intervention from government and enhanced
private sector participation, transformation of the economy
is possible. Second, we can win the battle of eradicating
income poverty and hunger if we invest in growth
enhancing, job creating and poverty reducing interventions.
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Our eforts in that direction have led to reduction of income
poverty by 7.8 percentage points from 36 percent in 2005 to
28.2 percent in 2012 and attainment of MDG target of
reducing food poverty by 50 percent. Third, support to
vulnerable people or households, through conditional cash
transfer or provision of public services, is important if
growth and poverty reduction eforts are to be more
inclusive.
Distinguished participants;
Invited Guests;
Ladies and Gentlemen;
In conclusion, let me repeat my opening statement that
the world is still faced with a daunting task of eliminating
extreme poverty and that this task is even more daunting in
Africa and LDCs like Tanzania. Political stability and
promotion of inclusive and pro-poor economic growth are
pre-requisites to poverty eradication. The growth decade in
Africa and indeed Tanzania has taught us the lesson that
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economic growth, while fundamental, is not sufcient.
Growth ought to be quality growth for it to be sufcient;
meaning it has to be inclusive, create employment and
increase peoples incomes.
For this to happen, such growth must take place in pro-
poor sectors that ensure inclusivity and accessibility to the
growth process by the poor and the marginalized sections of
the society. We are encouraged by the World Bank assurance
that extreme poverty as measured by spending less than US$
1.25 a day can be reduced to no more than 3 percent by 2030
by fostering income growth of the bottom 40 percent of the
population in every country. We all look with great
anticipation to that glorious year, when almost all our people
will be living in a prosperous world and living a prosperous
life.
It would be remiss of me if I conluded my remarks
without acknowledging and thanking the Government and
people of the USA for the invaluable support they are
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extending to developing countries like Tanzania in our
endeavours to wrestle our people from object poverty to
prosperity. The support is making the diference we all
desire. Please continue to do good job.
Thanks for your attention.