Fourth President of The United Republic of Tanzania (The United Republic of Tanzania)

Tanzania has become one of the fastest growing economies in the planet attracting a lot of FDI, and this country still have a lot to offer. What were the policy decisions that made Tanzania such an attractive destination for investment?

I can simply say that we have been pursuing sound economic policies, and this was the major key behind this success. We tried the socialist experiment between the sixties and early eighties, and things didn’t work out and therefore with our second President, President Ali Hassan Mwinyi, we started processes of reforms. In 1986, we started the first reforms and when I came into office, my commitment was to continue with the reform policies. Therefore, these policies worked really well for us, and now, we are seeing strong macroeconomic performance, growth rate is at 7%, inflation rate is low, exports have increased, government revenues as tremendously up, and we are still scaling up in all aspects. As I said, the major key behind all this is the pursuit of sound economic policies, as we make sure that the macroeconomic frame remains on the right track. This made us successful.

When I came into office as the fourth president of our country, I did a compressive view of Vision 2025, and in order to make sure that the country was on the right track and all parameters are still in place to move Tanzania into a middle-income country. In order to achieve Vision 2014, we devised the long-term perspective plan of fifteen years and divided in into three, five-year mid-term plans to guide the implementation of the Vision 2025.  The first five-year plan focuses on unleashing the growth potential of Tanzania. The second plan focuses on industrialization through enhancing productivity of agriculture, and the third focuses on enhancing competitiveness of Tanzania in both regional and global settings. Therefore, these are major guidelines to our development, and we have been implementing the plan well. We have also devised a new model of making sure that the Government delivers on these promises and plans, and we have called it Big Results Now – BRN in short. BRN focuses on seven areas of delivery, which are agriculture, education, health, water, and transportation. The biggest challenge with regards to the BRN issues is the resource mobilization because we are not getting enough to implement some of our demonstrated targets. The other challenge is in agriculture, which has not developed fast enough, and this is why we came up with Agricultural Sector Development Program in 2006 to address this challenge and we are now doing the second phase of the program.

By enhancing agricultural production, your administration has managed to reduce poverty and hunger. Could you explain to us the major changes that have occurred?

We have definitely managed to enhance the agricultural production in last few years. We now have food security, which wasn’t the case when we came into office. When we came into office, we had two problems: a shortage of power and famine. About 3.7 million people had to be fed by the government, and since then, we embarked on seriously transforming agriculture. We are now 100% self-sufficient on food supply, in which case, we no longer depend on external aid in regard to food.  But the agricultural sector is still our main focus now, but we are also glad that the other sectors are doing pretty well. Industrialization is doing fine, Government revenues are up. We are still taking even more initiatives in order to enhance agricultural productions such as the Southern Agriculture Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT).

You recently visited Vietnam and India. Tell us something about the usefulness of these visits.

Yes, I have visited both India and Vietnam, and both are doing exceptionally well in agriculture, and I took a private tuition on how why they are so successful. My particular interest was to find out how they were able to increase rice production. Consequently, there were few lessons that I learned, and which I have shared with my colleagues. Indeed, rice production in Tanzania is going up from the efforts of both small-holder farmers and even big companies such as the Anglo-American company producing rice in the Kilombero Valley. We have given them 10,000 hectares and they have done 5,000 hectares already. I think they are the largest scale rice producers in East Africa.

As the President of Tanzania, you will definitely leave you country, your people, and your party with a strong legacy that will last for years. What do you believe will be the strength of this legacy?

We have done so many things. The significance of our terms in the office has been to scale up everything. Facts and statistics do not lie. The following examples speak for themselves: the economic growth, the GDP, education level, food security, and improvement in infrastructure. During my time as Foreign Minister and now as President, I have also played key role in several mediation processes inside and outside the region. We did help Burundi, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo through a mediation process, and therefore, I have been trying to help out in making sure that peace is maintained. If the Government in Congo can establish government of national unity, it will certainly help in solving these matters because our interest is in ensuring that there should be no resumption of violence, so convincing these people what things they should do and what things they shouldn’t do isn’t that easy of a job.

Considering your record, you are certainly an exemplary leader for your country. In your own terms, what are the skills and main qualities required to lead such a tremendous amount of people in a big African country? What is your advice to the future President of Tanzania?

I think being calm is a virtue because there are times you get confronted with very challenging incidents, and you need to go through the issues and solve them. As a second thing, being open to others and reaching out to people when there are difficult issues to implement can be a real asset to yourself and your administration.

Tell us about your work as the head of the High Level Panel on the Global Responses to Future Health Crises.

Yes, it is called the High Level Panel on Response to the Global Health Crisis appointed by the Secretary General of the United Nations, HE Ban Ki Moon. The issue here is the way the World responded to the Ebola crisis, which has left much to be desired. Ebola having killed about 11,000 people, which suggests that the World needs to consider alternative responses to future health crises in the wake of Ebola.  Our assignment is taking Ebola as a case in point and to propose ways in which the world should respond in an event of another health crisis of a global character. What are the things that should have been taken into consideration during Ebola crisis to make sure that the disease doesn’t affect large number of people like Ebola did? The first meeting was held in New York, the second meeting in Geneva, and the next meetings will be in September and October in New York and Geneva respectively. We hand over our report to the UN Secretary General in December for any decisions about implementation. 

It has been two wonderful terms and you have accomplished meaningful changes for your people and your country. What will be your plan afterwards?

I will take a nap, and I will go back to the village and spend some good times. People have always been asking what I want to do when I leave the office, and I tell them that I don’t want any job because I have done the highest job on earth. Rendering services is something I can do, and I am thinking of establishing a foundation. I want to call it development institute to deal with issues like health, agriculture, and generally to deal with other development issues. Therefore health and agriculture will be major areas of my activities beyond the presidency.

You are stepping away after two astonishing terms that have gotten Tanzania to the next level of development – let’s say that this is not very common for an African leader.

I am not setting an example for anybody because this is tradition in Tanzania. Our first President Julius Nyerere was there, and he left. He stayed much longer, 23 years, and when he left power, we created a system of two terms. President Benjamin Mkapa was there, and he left, and, again, President Ali Hassan Mwinyi was there also, and he left. It is about time for me now, and I must leave the office to my successor to continue with the job. There is no need to change the constitution to justify my continued leadership of Tanzania. I have played my part, and it is time for me to go. Making changes in our constitution to allow me to stay in power is an idea that has never crossed my mind, and I believe that our country is now beyond that.

To finish, would you like to share a message with the Harvard Community?

Summing up, I would like to give a message to the potential investors when it comes to investment in Tanzania. We have plenty of investment opportunities in mining, agriculture, oil and gas exploration, tourism, and the manufacturing sector as well, and the environment is conducive. Tanzania is open for investment, and our country is ready to do business with you.