RESEARCHERS have signaled the end of land-based conflicts which have become notorious in parts of Tanzania, leading to heinous and unprecedented crimes.
This hope was given recently by the executive director of the Economic & Social Research Foundation (ESRF), Dr Bohela Lunogelo, during the opening of the Foundation's 'Maendeleo Studio,' a state-of-the-art studio facility in Dar es Salaam.
“We are quite aware of how these conflicts have already adversely affected the economy of this country, and we will soon embark on a pilot study of eight conflict zones countrywide,” he revealed. This was in response to what the Foundation was doing regarding land conflicts, with a view to counselling the Government on possible solution(s) to the problem.
During a 'Breakfast Debate' last January which was organized by ESRF in collaboration with the Policy Forum (PF) and the Tanzania Natural Resources Forum (TNRF), it was generally agreed that land-based conflicts are of longtime making, and are highly manipulated by interested parties.
Land-related conflicts usually result in increased poverty due to interruption and even total stoppage of agricultural and other productive activities, mostly in rural Tanzania. Among the major causes is land-grabbing, most of which comes through a highly touted foreign investment package!
Apart from weaknesses in land policies, grand corruption in acquiring land for investment or other purposes has excluded the weak, usually hapless peasants who have been on the land, sometimes for generations.
Alais Morindat from the International Institute for Environment & Development (IIED) says there is a tendency among Government functionaries to abhor pastoralists, having them kicked out wherever they go in search of new pastures for their herds.
“It is strange that pastoralists – particularly those of the Maasai origin – are branded in official circles as 'foreigners, militant and environmental degraders,” Morindat stated.
Noting that Maasai communities have been combining pastoralism with agriculture – and, at the same time, protect wildlife – Morindat argued that “land-related policies like 'Kilimo Kwanza' and the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCoT) have created an imbalance in land ownership.
It is due to such policies that there have been forceful evictions in Loliondo, Mvomero, Mkomazi, Mbaralali and Kilosa!”
The National Coordinator, Climate Change Adaptation Project at UNDP-Vice President's Office, Steven Mariki, says increasing economic activities in land investment have led to stiff competition and rural disharmony. In the event, he suggests that, before the Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC) allows new investors it should first thoroughly study the impact of such investments upon local populations.
A combination of the many opportunities which never existed before are today the reason for the ongoing land-related commotions, Mariki said, citing as an example the sudden rush in mining activities, commercial agriculture, construction of modern infrastructures and land speculation, all causing commotion especially in the rural parts of the country.
Godfrey Massay, a Programme Officer-cum-Lawyer at the Hakiardhi, reasoned that it is not proper for highly-positioned politicians to cast away pastoralisim as a means for livelihood while knowing that there are many people depending on this mode of life for their survival.
Retired Professor Adolf Mascarenhas warned that there have been many grandiose plans in agriculture which disengage poor peasants from the production process.
Arguing that some of those plans are fabricated in order to justify land grabbing, Mascarenhas said: “we have been hearing of sugar production on a large scale, climate change, 'Kilimo Kwanza,' foreign direct investment in agricultures; some of these conflict with each other, and are all confusing. They have become a menace to the poor peasants!”
Narrating how ESRF came into being, Dr Lunogelo attributed that to the onslaught of political pluralism in Tanzania in 1992 which demanded a corresponding economic model after the introduction of a free market economy in the country.
“Our institution has always maintained a fast pace in providing evidence-based results which, coincidently, facilitate a participatory private sector that can cope with the stiff global competition,” he explained.
Lunogelo took the opportunity to remind journalists that they can access information through the electronic channels the ESRF is hosting for mass consumption namely, Taknet and <www.tzonline>. This is a database and on-line tool designed to help Tanzanian professionals promote themselves and their work to local and international audiences.
It has facilitated a lot in the dissemination of knowledge in areas like food security; education and maternal care. Other areas are corruption and governance; economic management; environment; financial sector; agriculture and globalization.
Commenting on the Foundation's activities, the director of Poverty Alleviation in the Ministry of Finance, Anna Washa, said the government is highly impressed by ESRF’s initiative in establishing the studio, and for the fact that it has targeted mainly the rural population.
Dr Oswald Mashindano, a lecturer University of Dar es Salaam and researcher for the ESRF, admitted that Tanzania is yet to fully tap from agriculture which is poorly managed.
“We have one of the best opportunities through agriculture. But, poor management of the sector is a major obstacle, inadvertently leading to deaths, illnesses, food insecurity, ignorance, poor clothing and eventually new social reactions as a byproduct,” the don lamented.
He stressed that the continued failure to develop processing industries in Tanzania has caused the peasantry, which is comprises of 75 per cent of the 45-million population to remain stagnant.
“If you have such a huge population without processing industries, this is abject failure in economic terms,” he thundered!
A goodly number of Tanzanians are living below the poverty line –with 16.6 of them in a critical situation, according to the household statistics and surveys that were conducted from 1992 to 2007.
According to Dr Mashindano, there are multidimensional indexes of poverty ranging from hunger, lack of shelter, idleness, which eventually have rendered the rural sector quite unproductive.
He revealed that there is between 10-and-30 per cent of post-harvest losses due to poor mechanization of agriculture and storage facilities. If agriculture is given the impetus which it badly needs, it can generate a lot of employment opportunities.
A lot has to be done to make agriculture productive; namely: improve rural transportation, and increase the awareness of the engagement of the public sector in production.
But, while experts are giving this assurance in agro-economics, at the other end analysts are warning of an impending danger of intermittent civil strife due to land-based conflicts.
It has generally been observed that the once-celebrated rural sector during the days of Ujamaa policies and programmes under President Julius Nyerere (1962-85) is rapidly fading away, giving room to horrific killings involving peasants, both pastoralists and crop farmers.
