Updated:
December 2007
Tanzania
Country Programme
Prolinnova Tanzania started in 2005. It is coordinated by PELUM-Tanzania, a network of NGOs and CBOs working in the field of sustainable agricultural development, part of the wider PELUM network in Eastern and Southern Africa. Prolinnova Tanzania aims to build the capacity of network members and partners in the field of Participatory Innovation Development, create a platform for communication and documentation, facilitate networking of farmer innovators and facilitate advocacy work for the protection of genetic resources. Prolinnova Tanzania partners include MVIWATA, the national farmer network, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, the Sokoine University of Agriculture, the Cooperative College Moshi, INADES-Tanzania and many other NGOs.
PELUM-Tanzania: Coordinator of Prolinnova Tanzania
The development of PROLINNOVA Tanzania
Linking local innovation and biosafety issues
Objectives of PROLINNOVA country programme
Prolinnova Tanzania organisational set-up
Activities implemented to date
PELUM-Tanzania: Coordinator of Prolinnova Tanzania
PELUM-Tanzania stands for "Participatory Ecological Land Use Management in Tanzania". It is an associate member of the Regional network called 'PELUM Association' which is a network of civil society organisations operating in East, central and Southern Africa to facilitate effective learning and advocacy in participatory land-use management. Members of PELUM-Tanzania have come together to facilitate learning, networking and advocacy in sustainable agriculture. We feed our experiences into a strategic process to influence rural development. PELUM-Tanzania was launched in 1995 and registered in 2002. It has presently thirty three Member Organisations and collaborates with many other partners.
The PELUM vision is that farmers, men and women, especially small holders, are managing sustainably their environment and have the capacity to identify problems, to experiment and innovate, using locally available resources. PELUM wants to see that farmers are well organised and have formed strong networks to promote their interests at local and national level. It builds the capacity of its members in Sustainable Agriculture, strengthens training skills for empowering farmer groups as well as communication skills, supports members in fund raising, organises Action-Learning processes. PELUM gives high priority to gender policies. PELUM-Tanzania is to establish an information centre as a tool for documentation and communication to capitalise experiences and disseminate them in the network. It is also an advocacy tool with and for Farmer Organisations and Development Organisations to influence Government, Donors and NGOs on development issues and policies based on common analysis between farmers and organisations, especially on free market mechanism.
The development of PROLINNOVA Tanzania
Prolinnova Tanzania can build on the experiences of 2 recent programmes in Tanzania that worked on promoting local innovation and participatory innovation development. The programme "Promoting Farmer Innovations" (PFI) in Tanzania started in 1998 and run for three years with support from UNDP, managed by UNSO through a specific contribution from the Government of Netherlands. The Government of Tanzania, through the Vice President Office (VPO), Department of Environment, had the overall responsibility for the execution of the programme, with technical support from the Ministry of Agriculture - Soil Conservation and Land Use Planning Section (MOA-SCLUPS) as "Executing Agent". INADES-Formation Tanzania, an NGO PELUM member focusing on sustainable rural development and training implemented the programme. The programme worked with farmer innovators mostly in the dry Dodoma region, central Tanzania.
Almost in the same period, the Indigenous Soil and Water Conservation II programme run in Tanzania, mostly in the Southern Highlands. It emphasized the PID approach, provided training to extension, research and NGO staff to work with farmer innovators to develop more sustainable SWC practices and initiated policy dialogues at the district and national level. ISWC II was organized as a partnership programme, coordinated by the Cooperative College in Moshi but close involving the Sokoine University of Agriculture, Uyole Research Station, the district governments, MIVWATA, and several NGOs.
In 2004, the late Fr. Yves Marché who was the Country Representative for PELUM-Tanzania participated in the Prolinnova international workshop in Ethiopia where he shared the above Tanzanian experience on promotion of local innovation for sustainable agriculture. Since then, PELUM-Tanzania took the initiative with support from ETC Ecoculture of the Netherlands to develop a Prolinnova Tanzania programme and was successful in mobilising resources from various sources for a three year programme to be implemented from 1st January 2005 through 31st December 2007.
Linking local innovation and biosafety issues
One difference between Prolinnova Tanzania and other Prolinnova country programmes is that Prolinnova Tanzania’ activities are being carried out together with those of a Biosafety programme. These two programmes have been combined to form the so called "Promoting Local Innovation and Biosafety Project", which receives co-funding from EED, a German Protestant Church organization, and DGIS the Netherlands through ETC. In the process of formulating PROLINNOVA Tanzania, farmers working with PELUM-Tanzania member organisations in various parts of the country formulated the following main long term challenges:
- Farmers, men and women, want to increase their ability and power to manage properly our natural resources in our environment.
- Farmers, men and women, want to master their prices, markets, flows and exchanges.
- Farmers, men and women, want to determine their own development policies by forming a legal and representative organisation to promote their development interests and rights.
- Farmers, men and women, want to network, share information, experiences and best practices on issues related to the development at community, national and international levels.
With regards to the first challenge above, the issue of Genetic Resources was singled out. As it is the case in many other African countries, the genetic resources of Tanzania are threatened. Already some traditional seeds have disappeared because of the constant push for "modern" seeds produced by researchers and firms, either through natural methods (hybrids) or genetically modified organisms (GMOs). GMO trials are going on quietly in the country. Farmers and local communities’ rights are being threatened and Tanzania does not yet avail of legislation on Biosecurity and Biosafety, although a draft is being written. Advocacy on the protection of genetic resources in Tanzania would therefore be needed. To address all this a biosafety initiative was designed to the prevention of large-loss of biodiversity integrity, focusing both on ecology and human health with regards to different fields (e.g. Ecology, Agriculture, Medicine, Chemistry, and Exobiology).
As Prolinnova aims to enhance the skills of farmers, development practitioners and other stakeholders towards learning and encourage the development and spread of local innovation for improved livelihood of local people in ecologically-oriented agriculture and Natural Resources Management, PELUM felt that a Biosafety component would make a lot of sense. Both components do focus on managing sustainably the existing natural resources to improve the socio-economic livelihood of local people.
Objectives of PROLINNOVA country programme
Prolinnova Tanzania has 4 overall objectives:
- To build the capacity of PELUM Tanzania members and partners
- To be a platform for communication and documentation
- To facilitate Networking of Innovators
- To facilitate advocacy work for the protection of genetic resources.
More specifically, Prolinnova Tanzania wishes:
- To establish partnership of current and potential stakeholders in the implementation of the programme
- To build capacity of development practitioners on PID
- To identify and spread local innovations and local technologies
- To facilitate creation of enabling environment for institutionalisation of PID related to local innovation.
While the Biosafety component even more specifically wishes:
- To collect and analyse information on existing policies and activities, resource persons and documents related to biosafety and biosecurity in Tanzania; to collect information on existing African laws on the matter, especially the Model law for the protection of local community rights and the African Model Law on security in biotechnology
- To establish a coalition with interested and concerned partners
- To make the information collected available in Swahili version and inform public opinion and farmers on the necessity to protect Tanzania Genetic Heritage
- To pursue advocacy work through media, debates, declarations, parliament.
Prolinnova Tanzania organisational set-up
Under the overall responsibility of PELUM Tanzania, Prolinnova Tanzania has formed a core facilitating team responsible for the daily implementation of the programme. It is made of four people, Mr Patrick Lameck, the National PROLINNOVA Technical Advisor from INADES Formation Tanzania, Mr. Innocent Babili, the Assistant National PROLINNONVA Advisor from Sokoine University of Agriculture-Institute of Continued Education (SUA-ICE), Mr. Yakobo E. K Tibamanya, the Country Desk Coordinator of PELUM- Tanzania and Mr. Laurent Kaburire, Prolinnova Tanzania and Biosafety Project Officer (PELUM-Tanzania).
The programme is designed as a partnership programme and involves key stakeholders in policy setting and implementation through the National Steering Committee. The members of the NSC and their respective organizations are as follows:
- Dr. Haki (Research Director from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security)
- Prof. Nganga I. Kihupi (Sokoine University of Agriculture)
- Mr. Otieno. T. Kibwana (Coperative College of Moshi)
- Mr. Simon Mwang'onda (Director of Ileje Rural Development Organization)
- Mr. Alphonse Katunzi (Director of INADES Formation Tanzania)
- Ms. Loice Lema (Director of ENVIROCARE)
- Mr John Mabisi, a Farmer from the National Network of small scale farmers in Tanzania (MVIWATA)
- Mrs Hawa Kihwele, a farmer from the National Network of small scale farmers in Tanzania (MVIWATA)
- Mrs Yakobo E. K. Tibamanya (Country Desk Coordinator of PELUM-Tanzania).
Participants to the Prolinnova Tanzania National Planning Workshop, Kibaha, 6th – 11th November 2005
Activities implemented to date
Since its inception early 2005, various activities have been realised including:
- Preparation of the strategic activity plan for three years;
- Establishment of the Core Team for Prolinnova Tanzania made of four people;
- Organised four Core Team meetings to facilitate the process;
- We have been able to identify the National Technical Advisor and his Assistant for the programme being Mr Patrick Lameck – INADES and Mr. Innocent Babili ICE-SUA respectively;
- A MoU was signed between PELUM-Tanzania and ETC;
- Mr Patrick Lameck and Mr. Innocent Babili attended the Training of Trainers on PID/PTD in Manila the Philippines;
- We organised one sensitisation workshop on Prolinnova and Biosafety project for member organizations where potential stakeholders for implementation where identified (Report);
- We have established partnership with INADES-Formation whereby a MOU between PELUM Tanzania as the client and INADES formation as partner to providing Technical advisory services through his employee Mr. Patrick Lameck has been signed;
- Mobilised resources to supplement ETC funds for smoothing project implementation;
- Procurement of project equipments for documentation and recruitment of Prolinnova Tanzania project officer from 1st July, 2005 (Laurent Kaburire);
- Have organised a backstopping mission by Laurens van Veldhuizen, ETC Ecoculture, to strengthen communication and exchange of ideas to ensure successful project progress. The later participated in the first National Planning Workshop;
- Organised and facilitated the orientation and planning workshop for Prolinnova Tanzania for 2006-2007 that was held in Kibaha, Pwani Region from 7th-11th November 2005 (Report);
- Election of PROLINNOVA National Steering Committee made of ten (10) representatives from different institutions.
Prolinnova Tanzania has finalised its activity calendar for the year 2006. The activity plan will be sent to PELUM-Tanzania member organizations as well as Prolinnova Tanzania stakeholders for integrating and harmonizing within their respective work plans for 2006.
PELUM-Tanzania Staff and Mr. Laurens van Veldhuizen sharing ideas on Prolinnova Tanzania during Lauren's backstopping trip in Tanzania
5th November, 2005
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