President of Tanzania's message to debt campaigners
A message from the President of Tanzania to debt campaigners worldwide, in a number of languages.Allow me to send you my greetings of profound gratitude and staunch solidarity! When I became President of Tanzania in 1995, our country was witnessing a serious deterioration of basic services, and a high and unsustainable debt burden. One of my first priorities was to reverse these trends by increasing government revenue and seeking debt relief: you were my greatest partners in that campaign. Together we waged a worthy struggle, and in 2001 Tanzania was granted significant debt relief. As promised, this was directed to the priority sectors of education, health, water, rural roads and HIV/AIDS, enabling us to increase resources for poverty reduction by 130 per cent. We have already witnessed tremendous successes. The primary school population has increased by 66 per cent – the greater part of an extra two million children - and the shortfall in the enrolment of girls has been eliminated. We have built 45,000 classrooms, 1,925 new primary schools and over 7,500 homes for teachers in partnership with their communities; between 2000 and 2004, we recruited 37,261 new teachers, and retrained another 14,852. The pass rate in the Leaving Examination doubled in two years. At this rate, we believe that the goal of universal basic education can be attained in Tanzania in 2006, 9 years ahead of the United Nations 2015 target!! A Joint Review Team, which included independent, international members (representing foreign donors governments, etc.) , has commented that: “Pupils, teachers and parents are pleased that new and improved facilities are arising before their eyes, and especially that their children are beginning to have books, more motivated teachers and improved teaching and learning environments.” Much has been attained in other sectors as well. For instance, hospitals are being rehabilitated and refitted with diagnostic equipment; the previous shortage of basic drugs is now history; and the rate of immunisation has reached 83 per cent. We are now introducing the Hepatitis vaccine and this will save 20,000 – 25,000 lives annually. Debt campaigners worldwide have every reason to share with us the satisfaction we feel with this progress, for you stood by us in demanding debt relief. However, much remains to be done. We would dearly love to be able to provide free secondary schooling for all our children, for example, but cannot do so because the remaining level of debt is still such a drain on resources. Tanzania has shown dramatic improvements after getting partial relief. Clearly, much more can be done with total debt cancellation. Thank you for your kind attention. On to the Jubilee!!
