DAR ES SALAAM: THE World Bank Group‘s Board of Executive Directors has endorsed the new Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for Tanzania to support the country in consolidating its status as a lower middle-income country and achieving a high level of human development.
The framework also aims at contributing to the World Bank Group’s (WBG) mission to end extreme poverty and boost prosperity on a livable planet.
The new strategy maximises the impact of the One-WBG approach, coordinating and leveraging the strengths of the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) in the country over the period from 2025 to 2029 fiscal years.
The new CPF prioritises several key areas including supporting the country’s human development agenda. This includes providing transformative support in education, healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services, and shock-responsive social protection programmes, building upon the strong momentum already established by the Tanzanian government.
The CPF will also bolster the government’s goal of fostering a better environment for private sector-led growth. This will involve deepening support for reforms that strengthen the business climate, investing in infrastructure and connectivity to facilitate economic activity and modernising Tanzania’s productive sectors.
Additionally, the CPF aims to leverage the country’s strategic geographic location to promote inclusive growth both domestically and throughout the sub-region.
The strategy will support Tanzania’s crucial and multi-prong resilience agenda, focusing on climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies, alongside efforts to strengthen the country’s economic resilience.
Progress toward these objectives is underpinned by two cross-cutting priorities: increased empowerment of women and youth and improved government effectiveness with more efficient, transparent and accountable institutions.
“We have seen tremendous progress with recent policy changes, such as increasing access to education for all girls coupled with broader reforms such as vocational training,” said Nathan Belete, World Bank Country Director.
Mr Belete added “Girls and boys now have multiple pathways to complete their secondary education and the Fee-free Basic Education Policy has had an incredible impact, opening doors for 4.5 million new students. With such renewed commitment to human development and inclusion by the government, the outlook for inclusive growth and poverty reduction is favourable.”
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The CPF is informed by extensive consultations with a wide range of stakeholders as well as a country opinion survey and is aligned with the priorities identified in Tanzania’s Third Five-Year Development Plan and Zanzibar’s Five-Year Development Plan.
The CPF’s focus on private sector-led growth is consistent with IFC’s Creating Markets Strategy which aims to support conditions for private enterprises to efficiently contribute to inclusive development.
“Private sector participation is critical to any economy’s growth and development. To address Tanzania’s development goals, including poverty reduction and job creation, the country has an opportunity to further leverage private sector-driven economic growth,” said Mary Porter Peschka, IFC’s Regional Director for Eastern Africa.
Ms Peschka said “IFC will continue to work closely with our public and private sector partners, as well as with our colleagues across the World Bank Group, to unlock the conditions needed to further support inclusive finance, agribusiness, manufacturing and sustainable infrastructure through investments, advisory and upstream support.”
“In recent years, MIGA has seen a significant increase in investor interest in Tanzania, thanks to reforms undertaken by the government,” said Șebnem Erol Madan, Director of Economics and Sustainability at MIGA.
She added; “As part of the new CPF, MIGA will continue to support financial inclusion and climate finance initiatives and will leverage the new World Bank Group guarantee platform to support the country in attracting and mobilising private capital in other sectors, including renewable power and digital.”
The CPF builds on a well-performing WBG portfolio in the country. Through the CPF 2018-2022, the World Bank provided over 9 billion US dollars of financing that delivered important improvements for Tanzanians, such as Increased access to safe water for nearly 4.7 million people which helped reduce the disease burden and improved school attendance and completion rates, particularly for girls.
Others include improved secondary education benefitting 2.7 million students, especially girls, by providing better-equipped secondary schools.
Additionally, technical and vocational education enrolment tripled and 64 per cent of female graduates found employment and expanded access to electricity for 7.9 million people in rural areas, which enhanced their livelihoods, health and learning opportunities.
