EDITORIAL: Target majority’s needs to end chronic poverty

>On Monday, Vice President Mohammed Gharib Bilal attributed the abysmal performance in Tanzania’s poverty fight to the sluggish growth in the agricultural sector.

The concern by MPs, especially those who hail from constituencies where sugarcane is a major cash crop, are agitating for a curb in sugar importation and on the outset, their concern makes a lot of sense. Tanzania is blessed with a climate and soils that are optimally good for sugarcane farming, which means we should boast as global supplier of the sweetening product whose global demand is insatiable.

The days of people involved in blast fishing, who are wreaking havoc along Tanzania’s 800-kilometre coastal line, are numbered, warns head of the Multi-Agency Task Team (Matt) deputy commissioner of Police (DCP) Daniel Nyambabe.

>Tanzania should embark on a serious fight against poverty through building a strong agricultural sector and tapping the potentials of its tourism sector.

It’s an open secret; poverty is a big time problem in Tanzania. This is despite the recent statistics showing that only a third of the population still languishes in abject poverty.

Ending poverty is one of 17 goals outlined by the UN to replace the Millennium Development Goals which expire this year, as Naomi Grimley explains.

L-R:  Former president of Ghana John Kufuor; President of Cote D’Ivoire Alassane Ouattara, Co-Chair of the Africa Energy Leaders Group (AELG); Tony O. Elumelu, Chairman of Heirs Holdings and Co-Chair of the AELG; Vice President of Nigeria Yemi Osinbajo during the inaugural meeting of the AELG held in Abidjan yesterday to discuss regional solutions to the electricity deficit in Africa.

L-R:  Former presidents of Nigeria and Ghana Olusegun Obasanjo; John Kufuor; President of Cote D’Ivoire...

It would be naïve for anyone of us to think or demand that, conquering poverty – the bane of this country’s majority –  is an easy, short term engagement, since  resources needed to achieve this are in short supply.

L-R: Former president of Ghana John Kufuor; President of Cote D'Ivoire Alassane Ouattara, Co-Chair of the Africa Energy Leaders Group (AELG); Tony O. Elumelu, Chairman of Heirs Holdings and Co-Chair of the AELG; Vice President of Nigeria Yemi Osinbajo during the inaugural meeting of the AELG held in Abidjan yesterday to discuss regional solutions to the electricity deficit in Africa. L-R: Former presidents of Nigeria and Ghana...