It is with delight that we bring to you the first edition of the Newsletter covering the period between January to June 2017. The edition presents to you yet another round of updates in brief re surfacing within the Foundation. In implementing the second year of our Medium Term Strategic Plan 2016 – 2020, the Foundation has been in its full mast operations in fulfilling its mandate research being the core one. Apart from research, the Foundation also embarks in Governance and Capacity Development, Commissioned Studies and Knowledge Management and Innovation.

In the first half of the year 2017, the Strategic Research and Publication Department continued with the implementation of projects which started in the previous year, including; Enhancing Industrialization in Tanzania as a Pivotal Pillar of Economic Growth: A Mapping of Extant Industrialization Potentials, aiming at identifying and documenting industrialization potential and exact areas of industrialization by sector in these regions, such as Leather sector, Pharmaceutical, Cotton, Urbanization and Special economic zone and Out of School Children (OOSC) in the Primary Education System in Mara Region aiming at profiling the out of school children in Mara Region, as well as to profile all available public/ private schools, and identify potential support services and organization that extend to support these children to or re-enroll in schools. Apart from these projects the Department managed to prepare; two issues of QER covering the period of July-September 2016, Published ten (10) policy briefs, published three (3) discussion papers, Annual Report 2016 and one study report.

Under the Commissioned Studies, the Department among other activities is responsible for conducting demand driven policy researches. In this first half of the year 2017, it managed to implement a total of eleven studies falling under four ESRF’s strategic themes namely; Inclusive Growth, Employment and Industrialization; Natural resources and environment management; and Social Service Delivery and Social Protection. Some of the ongoing projects include; Formulation of Annual Action Plan Program 2017, 11th EDF Interventions for Tanzania in Agriculture Sector (Horticulture), Scaling up Seeds & Technologies (SSTP), Adoption Survey in Tanzania and National Tourism Policy Review 1999

The Governance and Capacity Development proceeded with its mandate, whereby in this period it managed to conduct six policy dialogues, such as Impact of mining in special inequality in Africa and the impact of long term cooperation between Sweden and Tanzania. It also carried out two knowledge sharing workshops and four short course trainings in Dodoma, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar and Mwanza. The Knowledge Management and Innovation (KMI) Department continued implementing Pro-Poor Economic Growth and Environmentally Sustainable Development (PEI) Project and other routine activities. In this first half of the year the Department conducted a training workshop on “the role of community radios on rural development: Focusing on contents, financial and institutional sustainability” aiming at imparting knowledge to community radios to be able to sustain their respective radios in contents generation, financial and institutional areas. The workshop benefitted 18 participants from community radios supported by PEI Project. The Department also facilitated the launching of Simiyu Investment Guide which is the outcome of the study

Read More