Tanzanian Government to strengthen ties with national SADC parliamentarians.

Dodoma 23/06/2022.

The Tanzania ministry of Foreign Affairs and east African cooperation will enhance linkages on SADC agenda with Tanzanian members of parliament representing the country to the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Parliamentary Forum.

A senior diplomat with the ministry said in a workshop convened recently under auspices of public social accountability alliance (PSA), that there is a gap of not involving national SADC members of parliament on issues of regional integrations.

Ambassador Agnes Kayola, told member of parliament that the ministry will work to ensure that parliamentarians are full informed of what is happening in the integration including the implementation of the 10 years SADC Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (SADC RISDP 2030).

The workshop was organised by ESAFF, MVIWATA and the Parliament of Tanzania aimed at equipping SADC PF members from Tanzania on the public social accountability gaps and the results of the 3^rd AU Malabo Biennial Review Report as well as the SADC RISDP 2030.

Speaking at the event, the chairperson of Tanzania parliamentarian to SADC Hon. Selemani Jumanne Zedi said he has been in the regional parliament for more than 10 years but had not appreciated domestic and SADC policy linkages.

“I thank ESAFF and PSA alliance for bridging this gap and I call upon public and non-state actors to use national representatives to regional bodies to present various issues of concerns” Hon. Zedi emphasized.

His call was alluded to by Hon. Dr. Alfred Kimea, Hon. Shally Raymond, Hon. Haji Hassan Kassim and Hon. Hawa Mwaifunga.

At the workshop, ESAFF presented 7 recommendations, calling among them for:

• All SADC MSs to fulfil 7 Malabo commitments and allocate progressively, timely at least 10% of public funds to agriculture sector
• MSs to Fast operationalization of the SADC Reginal Development Fund (RDF) and the SADC ADF to support the implementation of RAIP,
• SADC MSs to adopt a gender based right to food and nutrition framework in all future reviews of policies or strategies
• Encourage introduction of SADC Regional Strategy on Agriculture Extension Services, a quality declared seed system (QDS) to provide support to agroecology approaches at scale
• SADC to develop and strengthening national and regional participatory Joint Agriculture Sector Review (JASR) Platforms
• Advocate for the establishment of SADC National Committees (art.9 of the SADC Treaty) and,
• SADC Parliament Forum members to lobby and advocate for fully legislative power as it was agreed during the heads of state summit in 2019 in Dar es salaam – Tanzania (communique # 31), that would grant full oversight functions as opposed to being a parliamentary forum with no meaningful platform to discharge functions as parliament.

PSA alliance is a consortium of 4 members which include ESAFF, Actionaid International, Rhodes University – PSAM, and SAfAIDS and is funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).