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When the Rules Don't Work for You

Tanzania's Minister of Industry and Trade Iddi Simba talks to TERRAVIVA about his country's struggle as an LDC.

By Lewis Machipisa

Q: How does Tanzania feel about being an LDC?

A: We are not happy at all that we are an LDC. This is not something that anyone would like to be. We are very disturbed that we have to keep on coming to the north to ask for financial assistance. We would like to be able to do these things ourselves. Our policy is of self-reliance. We have been pursuing this for a long time. It's just that our ability to execute this policy has been hindered. But the moment we are able to stand on own feet, we would like to get out of this group of LDCs

Q: What benefits have accrued to Tanzania by being in the LDC group

A: Lots and lots of assistance. We are not short of development assistance but results have not been particularly encouraging. We are still poor. It's the whole structure of this assistance, and the global structure of how we run things does not produce results. That's why perhaps that maybe this time around we will see a different kind of mechanism.

Q: Well even before the curtain comes down on this conference, some people are saying it will also go down in history as having been a talk shop

A: That's a view of a pessimist. I believe in giving everything a chance. But obviously one should not be oblivious of the previous experiences. We know where we made many mistakes but one keeps on trying new tricks and we must give new tricks a chance. We wouldn't be here if we didn't think that there was a hope of finally finding a solution to the problems.

Q: Come the next LDC conference, do you think Tanzania will have graduated from the group?

A: 10 years from now I would like Tanzania to be out of the LDC group and we will be working very hard to get out. Look, being an LDC is to be poor and who likes to be poor.

Q: But it would take some time?

A: For the kind of resources at least we in Tanzania have within our own borders, we are not in the business of being poor at all. We are a very rich country. But we have been short-changed by the North. We have done nearly everything that the international community wanted us to do by way of policy reforms. We meet all those standards, but multinationals are not working. Direct foreign investment is still very little. It's trickling in very slowly.

Q: But have LDCs learnt from past mistakes?

A: We are trying. But we are not yet that coordinated on our common policies as LDCs. We need to negotiate with one voice.

There is an issue of coordinating the least developed countries and go through the catalogue of questions which we are asking the North, go through another catalogue of issues which confront ourselves, the solutions which are within our own capabilities so that on the basis of these consultations which we are going to have in Tanzania later this year, we should be able to come to a common position on whether or not we will have another round. But we are approaching it with an open mind.

We don't want to be rushed into another round of agreements. Quite frankly right now, on the basis of information available to us we see no logic for it. We don't see it. What gives us a hope that this time around another round will produce better results than the previous round? Nothing so far?

We are saying that we have got together with the developed world to find out why the LDC one and two did not produce the kind of results we are looking for and what do we have on the table to give us a feeling that this time around we can start a better round.

It's a question of going through the motions of evaluating the performance of the past before we jump into another round.

LDCs are meeting in Dar es Salaam in July in order to examine all these issues and prepare for Dhoa with an open mind and see whether we can reach an agreement or not. We are not opposed to anything at this time, we are only raising questions.

Q: How able is Africa to follow the negotiations?

A: Our fundamental problem has been that right from the start of negotiations, developed countries have always had very huge delegations, well equipped for these negotiations while ours have been very few. For example Tanzania, we have our Ambassador in Geneva with very few people in his staff. In fact he has only one person who could come close to being able to understand and engage in negotiations. We are very thin on the ground. We can't match what the developed world is actually having by way of negotiating capacity.

Q: This is where UNCTAD support is needed, right?

A: UNCTAD is quite helpful. But the problem we have with UNCTAD quite frankly, is that they have concentrated right from the time they were created on trade and very little on development. Now they are beginning to respond to this particular cry.

Q: Do you feel tricked?

A: Yes. We are actually saddened very seriously by the fact that we have followed the rules, we have implemented what we committed ourselves to do. It was a question of policy reforms in the field of politics, democracy and economic reforms. We have done all that. My country followed religiously what we had agreed to do with the World Bank and IMF. Yes, we have become stable. All our macroeconomic fundamentals have been stable for the last three years now, but there has not been a corresponding reaction from our development partners who insisted that we must have that economic reform programme.

The international community which imposed all these conditions on us, is not reacting properly to the actions we have taken.

Q: But then, couldn't one argue that since the developed countries have continuously let you down, isn't it time for home-grown solutions?

A: We are living in the same world. So what we are saying now is let us get together in order to cooperate more intensively than we have been doing before. Let's create this force of unity which we have not been able to create before. They need us, we need them. We need each other. But where we feel we have been short-changed, is that we have opened our markets to them and they have not really opened theirs to us.

Q: Talking about LDC's goods accessing northern markets, there is an argument which says that some of the phyto-sanitary standards demanded by the west are basically designed to limit what can be allowed into their countries

A: No. We have no problem with them maintaining their standards. Their standards should be our standards. They want to eat healthy food. So do we.

Q: But who decides the standards and can you match them?

A: The question is whether they will be able to extend to us sufficient financial technical assistance to produce goods of the quality that they can buy, goods of the quality that our people must buy. If they want healthy foods, so do we. If we are eating dirty foods, its because we cannot afford to engage in the processing of cleaning what we are growing.

Q: But are you eating dirty food?

A: That is the problem of poverty. The moment you eradicate poverty, of course you will solve those problems. We cannot have any problems with the EU saying they want to maintain standards.