Changes of Foreign Policy and Development Support towards Public Assets Management in Tanzania: Is this the Answer for Forest and Wildlife Improvement?

Tanzania has changed its foreign policy. The changes are aiming to increase development support in key sectors of strategic significance to the economy particularly forest and wildlife management. From colonial to postcolonial eras, development partners support forest and wildlife conservation. However, the support has failed to improve forest and wildlife management, due to failure of not being able to address livelihood and vulnerability issues such as improved human health, employment opportunities, prices, demography and technology of the people residing around the forest and wildlife reserves. Eventually, there is a continuance of deforestation and poaching activities. Thus, paper suggests future changes of foreign policy should aim at harmonising key policies of strategic significance to the economy. The harmonisation would help to establish a common policy agenda for Tanzania in forest and wildlife management globally. Harmonisation could increase and ensure the right form of development support is acquired for improving both condition of forest and wildlife reserves as well as livelihood outcomes of local population. Most importantly, paper suggests that livelihood analysis should be conducted prior to the provision of development support. Development support as it now stands, only serves to aid in improving condition of forest and wildlife reserves, and made the local population vulnerable to poverty.


Introduction
In forest and wildlife conservation, Tanzania has been receiving financial and technical support from SIDA, DANIDA, FINNIDA, NORAD and World Bank (IDA). These development partners' agencies have been at the forefront in financing programs and projects such as participatory forest management (Blomley and Ramadhani 2005). Thus, bilateral development partners have been particularly important in helping Tanzania to conserve its forest and wildlife resources (Bigsten et al 1999).
Hence, in order to understand the contribution of development support in forest and wildlife management, one has to understand how has change in foreign policy provisions stemmed from the shift of country's international diplomacy, affected development partners' financial and technical support needed for improving forest and wildlife management in Tanzania?
Tanzania has shifted its international diplomacy from political diplomacy to economic. The change has the following objectives: to project, promote and protect the country's economic, social and cultural interests through active and sustainable economic diplomacy; to ensure that the country's relation with other nations and international entities are in line with economic interests of the state; and to create the necessary conditions which shall enable the state to participate effectively in regional and international affairs (MFAIC 2015).
Therefore, the study is aiming at examining correlation that exists between foreign policy as independent variable on one hand, and development partners' financial and technical support as dependent variable on the other hand, needed for improving forest and wildlife conservation in Tanzania.

Study Objective
To examine the way change in foreign policy provisions stemmed from the shift of country's international diplomacy, has affected development partners' financial and technical support needed for improving forest and wildlife management in Tanzania

Empirical Theory of Policy Making
The theoretical framework underpinning this research lies in the guiding empirical theory of policy making propounded by Professor Robert E. Goodin. The theory postulates that sound and effective policies must be based on an analysis of the situation that is both empirically well-grounded and theoretically defensible (Goodin 1982 p.7). Additionally, theory works by ensuing the underlying theoretical principle that policy making must add meaning or feed into other related policies, amongst others (ibid).

Narratology of the Study
A qualitative approach was found to be more appropriate in understanding how has change in foreign policy provisions stemmed from the shift of country's international diplomacy, affected development partners' financial and technical support needed for improving forest and wildlife management in Tanzania? The preference given to qualitative approach over quantitative in this study was due to the fact that, quantification of policy effects in Tanzania has been difficult because of lack of reliable, consistent and comprehensive data in almost all sources of statistics (UNEP 2002).
In this study, interpretivism was chosen as the research philosophy. Additionally, a flexible research design was adopted and an interpretive case study was employed. Since the study was qualitative, semi-structured interviews and interactions were conducted. In establishing the sample size and choosing respondents and sampling technique, the sample size was 40 respondents and non-probability sampling technique was chosen, and technique used was purposive.
Data transcription was carried out by professional transcribers and later translated from Swahili to English by independent translators to ensure limited chance of subjectivity and bias in the study. Data transcribed and translated were subsequently entered into NVivo software where they were auto-coded and analysed until themes were identified. After these themes were identified, each theme was further analysed and interpreted by using analytical techniques of Content analysis and Narrative analysis.
The logic behind data interpretation in narrative analysis is to translate the stories of respondent's experiences into a narrative form. Narrative form is said to be produced, once a coherent story from data has been constructed. In short, through the use of narrative analysis, the author provides new and interpreted narrative which has a different message, embedded with unbiased personal opinion when being constructed (Segel and Heer 2010).

Foreign Policy and Development Support
There have been several changes to Tanzania's foreign policy provisions. Currently, there is an on-going review process, however, no prior research studies have been conducted either at the review stage or during the initial policy formulation in order to understand the critical policy issues which are needed to foster development support in other areas of strategic significance to the economy such as forest and wildlife management.
Meanwhile, the foreign policy itself has not been connected or harmonised with other domestic policies such as those of forest and wildlife sectors of the economy. The foreign policy is an extension of domestic policies needed to ensure their successful implementation, and failure to interconnect with the lower (domestic) policies, implies failure of the foreign policy itself. In either case, Forest policy 1998 or Wildlife Policy 2007 (RE) do not contribute to the policy provisions outlined in the country's foreign policy.
Additionally, Tanzania foreign policy has not been connected to other key and strategic domestic policies or even International Affairs and Global Strategy www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-574X (Paper) ISSN 2224-8951 (Online) Vol.81, 2020 45 any of the sustainable development goals. Developing economies such as Tanzania require such a link between macro and micro policies as well as foreign and domestic policies in order to ensure that they address various challenges such as global crisis of climate change.
There are many significant changes to the revision of Tanzania's foreign policy provisions. These changes constitute part of the major policy reforms that have been taking place in Tanzania since the 1990s. However, the significant changes in foreign policy provisions and reforms as a whole, have not been able to address critical issues such as climate change management.
Policy reforms in Tanzania started in the 1990s as a condition for debt relief when policies were being developed for the first time. Before policy reforms, the Government of Tanzania used colonial laws, declarations and speeches to govern various public operations.
The changes to economic diplomacy started to be implemented in 2001, when the Government of Tanzania introduced its first formal foreign policy document. However, there was no prior and proper policy research study conducted before drafting the new foreign policy, in spite of many dynamics or changes taking place at national and international levels. It was in 2016, that the Government of Tanzania decided to revise its Foreign Policy 2001. The revision was expected to be completed by June 2017. At the moment, policy revision is onprogress.
Moreover, during its initial formulation and current policy revision of the Foreign Policy 2001, lack of proper coordination is evident as the key ministries which contribute decisively to the economy have minimal contribution. Lack of coordinative framework is said to be the cause and made policy implementation difficult between ministries. The significance of such coordination among ministries is necessary for harmonising the policies and laws which are being developed and implemented and eventually reduce contradictions and adverse effects such as increased Human-Wildlife Conflicts (HWCs), poaching, wildlife trafficking, animal extinction, deforestation, forest degradation and the ever-decreasing living standard of the people.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, East Africa, Regional and International Co-operation (MFAEARIC) has a responsibility of coordinating key sectorial ministries of strategic significance to the economy. The main challenge that MFAEARIC usually faces, is delay by the relevant ministries in providing feedback on implementation status of various issues of strategic importance. When such delays occur, they might be conceived or interpreted in a way which can affect the country's relations with others partners in development and subsequently reduce development partners' support both technically and financially.
In light of the above, there is a pressing need for improving inter-ministerial coordination framework. Interministerial coordination of strategic ministries such as coordination between MFAEARIC, VPO (Vice President's Office) and MNRT (Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism), is a policy issue need to be addressed in the country's foreign policy particularly in dealing with climate change.
Furthermore, among the setbacks in forest and wildlife management is the contradiction that exists between forest and wildlife policies and their respective laws on one hand and the various cross cutting policies and laws of other ministries on the other hand. This contradiction tends to adversely affect forest and wildlife management. Yet, in spite of the contradictions, MNRT has not ensured representation and active involvement of those ministries in policy revision of Forest Policy 1998 which is underway.
The opposite is also true for on-going the policy review of Foreign Policy 2001. There has been minimal involvement and feedback from both sides of the ministries of MFAEARIC and MNRT. Thus, Foreign Policy 2001 is not receiving enough input from other domestic policies such as those of forest and wildlife management. Eventually, critical issues in forest and wildlife management will not form part of the country's foreign policy or being translated into diplomatic language needed for communicating with other international counterparties. For International Affairs and Global Strategy www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-574X (Paper) ISSN 2224-8951 (Online) Vol.81, 2020 46 example, what is the meaning of participatory forest management in the diplomatic context and language? In other words, there is minimal exchange of inputs among the ministries when policies are being developed or revised.
Furthermore, in the on-going policy review of Foreign Policy 2001 which started in 2016, MFAEARIC is not using any empirical research findings to iron out issues of strategic importance which need to be included in the revised policy. Rather, MFAEARIC decided to form a small task force from within, which is simply conducting desk reviews on various materials sources as well as using instructions issued by top ministerial officials to revise the country's foreign policy.
A similar approach was used when the foreign policy was initially developed in 2001. Unfortunately, it was only in 2006, five years after the new foreign policy was launched, other actors such as development partners and parliamentarians started to show their concerns for the quality of Foreign Policy 2001 in terms of content and achievability of objectives stipulated within the policy itself. Even many others argued that some policy issues were obsolete and among the key actors who expressed their dissatisfactions were members of parliament's special committee on foreign affairs. Even officials within MFAEARIC also displayed their discontentment over the quality of Foreign Policy 2001. The private sector also urged Government to revise the foreign policy in order to have foreign policy which can address modern challenges and envisage future ones.
Moreover, some major internal dynamics such as discovery of large deposits of oil, gas and uranium in Tanzania apart from other dynamics taking place in forest and wildlife management nationally and internationally, have not been considered in the on-going policy revision of Foreign Policy 2001. These critical developments are supposed to be extensively researched and understood from a policy perspective and eventually went on to identify key policy issues that need to be included in the revised policy.
Climate change is another key policy issue which has not been well addressed in Foreign Policy 2001. The climate change is actually requires development partners' attention in terms of providing both financial and technical support to alleviate the impact of changes in weather condition. There is an urgent need for Tanzania to seriously engage in the global war of fighting climate change by using natural methods and strategies such as the use of forest resources that offer ecological solution to the problem of climate change.
The climate change as a policy item have been taken into consideration during the on-going policy review of Foreign Policy 2001. However, extensive research is actually required to understand the underlying issues of climate change which could eventually assist in providing a solid foundation for addressing climate change crisis and constitute an important element of the revised foreign policy.
The human population growth is another policy issue to be considered, as they always tend to encroach into forests and wildlife reserves to establish their settlements. An example of the effect of such encroachment can be seen in the wildlife corridor of Igeta to Ketaketa. This is among the largest wildlife corridors in wildlife management in Tanzania which takes wildlife animals from Selous game reserve to other wildlife reserves. Over the years, it has been encroached upon by humans thus resulting in the destruction of the forest condition and natural habitats of wildlife animals.
Climate change has brought continuous challenges. For decades there have been many international conventions on climate change as well as forest and wildlife management in which Tanzania participated and ratified their final agreements. These conventions usually demanded drastic change to the way Tanzania manages its forest and wildlife resources. protocol which was adopted in 2010 as a protocol or supplementary agreement to the CBD, focusing on access to genetic resources with fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from utilisation of natural resources.
In Nagoya protocol, the United Nations declared the period between 2011 to 2020 as the UN decade on biodiversity. The famous earth summit in Rio de Janeiro or RIO Convention (also known as United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992 was another international engagement for Tanzania. It was later followed by another earth summit held in Johannesburg in 2002. The Johannesburg Convention also known as World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) was aimed at assessing the implementation of the agreement signed in Rio de Janeiro ten years back and the Johannesburg convention was then nicknamed as "Rio + 10". Furthermore, Kyoto Protocol (2005) was another international treaty under UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) which was adopted in Kyoto Japan, enforced in 2005 and lasted for ten years until 2015, when the Paris Convention took over. The Paris Convention in 2015 was another United Nations climate change conference and the conference negotiated a global agreement to reduce climate change and all parties involved in the negotiation ratified the agreement including Tanzania.
These international treaties, demand changes in Tanzania's foreign and domestic policy provisions in order to respect the country's commitments and at the same time recognise its rights to receive both financial and technical support from development partners. Thus, it is imperative for Foreign Policy 2001, Forest Policy 1998and Wildlife Policy 2007 to be reviewed and linked in such a way as to accommodate those dynamics that took place internationally and even envisage others which might occur in the future. In this case, these international dynamics in climate change management, makes the role, importance and contribution of foreign policy in managing forest and wildlife resources to be critical.
The real impact of climate change on forest and wildlife management is yet to be known. Some can be seen through incidents such as forest degradation and animal extinction. However, there are no impactful research studies conducted to understand the magnitude of climate change. Lack of long-term data which could facilitate a thorough assessment of the full extent of climate change is a shortfall which can only be corrected through detailed and extensive research studies.
Without long-term data, or in other words, extensive research studies, it is going to be difficult to reduce the HWCs which exacerbate poaching incidents. Poaching incidents easily occur when animals decide to move based on their knowledge of resource availability from one location to another and pass through villages. Thus, impactful research should be conducted in order to have an insight on underlying issues of HWCs and how these relate to climate change.
On the other hand, the problem of not having long-term and reliable data is not being faced by Tanzania alone, but rather is a global one. The unavailability of long-term and reliable data has caused the United Nations (UN) to make a specific resolution on the importance of ensuring each country establishes its own data bank. The national data bank will enable various actors to access information such as to what extent the country's forest cover has been affected, or how much of forest land size has been encroached by human population. The national data banks may also assist in understanding the underlying issues behind HWCs.
Moreover, to show recognition of importance of valid and reliable national data bank, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have contained a specific goal on the need for each country to have reliable data banks in order to facilitate decision making. Therefore, countries are encouraged to establish data banks as part of implementation of SDGs and Tanzania has already started the process of establishing its own data bank in compliance with the SDGs' requirements.
Tanzania accepted the SDGs in 2015. Since then, measures have been taken to explain the relevance of the International Affairs and Global Strategy www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-574X (Paper) ISSN 2224-8951 (Online) Vol.81, 2020 48 seventeen SDGs to the country and ordinary citizens by translating the same in local Swahili language. However, the extent in which the on-going policy review process of Foreign Policy 2001 has assimilated these SDGs, is a subject matter worthy of investigation in other future policy studies.
As a qualification to obtain more development support in terms of both financial and technical in forest and wildlife management, Tanzania decided to develop national climate change strategy and national Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) strategy. The two strategies are aiming at strengthening the country's position that would ensure increased financial and technical support from development partners in managing carbon business. Mgaya (2017 p.45) argues that the major aim of development partners when providing financial and technical support in forest and wildlife management has always been more on increasing carbon stocks. Yet, the terms and conditions of carbon business seems to be unfavourable to Tanzania (as the seller of carbon) and favour the industrialised countries (the buyers) and leading producers of carbon.
Carbon trade is actually a new and complicated phenomenon to Tanzanians. The common assumption is that, all forest trees tend to absorb carbon gas and even grasses. Therefore, trade agreement between seller and buyer of carbon is supposed to include both forest trees and grasses.
However, terms and conditions presented by buyers choose to pay or buy carbon found in planted forests only. Moreover, the planted forests that are being allowed into the carbon market, are those planted after carbon trade agreement was ratified.
As such, plantation forests are the only ones being recognised in the carbon business and not natural forests. However, both planted and natural forests absorb carbon. Thus, with equal exchange in respect of terms and conditions of carbon trading, the forest and wildlife resources can actually be used to offer ecological solution to climate change and subsequently guarantee climate stability and improving the livelihood of local population. Equal exchange in carbon business can encourage carbon sellers to further improve forest and wildlife conservation.
In other respect, development financial and technical support in forest and wildlife management has been provided by using Participatory Forest Management (PFM) and Wildlife Management Area (WMA) programs respectively. The PFM is implemented through Community-Based Forest Management (CBFM) and Joint Forest Management (JFM) models.
The PFM objectives are: to advocate private forest conservation and community ownership of forest resources; and to provide legal basis for jointly managing forest resources between the Government and communities (Lokina and Robinson 2008). In CBFM model, the ownership of forest is fully transferred to the local community. Meanwhile, in JFM model, the Government maintains ownership of the forest. In implementing PFM program, emphasis has been on the use of JFM model in managing forest reserves in many places, and only few places CBFM model is being used. However, experience shows that in places where CBFM model is employed, both forest conditions and livelihood outcomes of local communities have significantly improved.
On the other hand, WMA is defined as an area declared by the minister to be so and set aside by the village governments for the purpose of biological natural resources conservation (MNRT 1998b p.34). Officially, local communities retain the right to determine exactly how the land will be used, and by whom (Igoe and Croucher 2007). However, in Tanzania the WMAs are not designed in ways that allow the villagers to make informed decisions about this process (Goldman 2003). Both PFM and WMA programs have originated in Norway, a longtime development partner in forest and wildlife management and the programs have been adopted through NORAD (Norwegian Agency for Development).
The PFM and WMA programs have failed to improve forest and wildlife management. The failure is attributed International Affairs and Global Strategy www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-574X (Paper) ISSN 2224-8951 (Online) Vol.81, 2020 to the fact that the support provided, ignores the need to address the livelihood and other vulnerability issues of local population, and instead focusses more on better preservation of forest and wildlife resources. Poverty is causing rise in encroachment into forest and wildlife reserves which result in destruction of forest condition and natural habitats of wildlife animals. A case in point, is the Monduli forest reserve that has undergone bouts of degradation due to the adoption of the JFM model of PFM.
Hence, PFM and WMA programs have not been able to meet their objectives primarily because, they lack proper livelihood analysis. The successful development support is one that addresses both livelihoods and vulnerability issues (GLOPP 2008 p.1)

Harmonisation and the necessity for Livelihood Analysis
The development support can only improve forest and wildlife management if only the deliberate measures are taken to harmonise country's foreign policy with other policies of key sectors of strategic significance to the economy. Harmonisation would help to align some key policy issues and establish common policy agenda for Tanzania in forest and wildlife management globally, and enable to attract more and right form of both financial and technical support needed to foster forest and wildlife conservation. The harmonisation should also be legally enforceable by the foreign affairs legislation. In order to ensure that a particular policy is successfully implemented, legislation normally help to enforce the implementation of the policy (Heritier 2002 p.186).
In a nutshell, development support through PFM and WMA programs, has neither succeeded in improving condition of forest and wildlife reserves nor livelihood outcomes of local population. The ever-decreasing livelihood outcomes can be improved by ensuring proper livelihood analysis is conducted prior to the provision of development support. Improved livelihood of local population will also improve condition of forest and wildlife reserves.

Conclusion
This paper has examined change of foreign policy in Tanzania and the way has affected development support in forest and wildlife management. It is revealed that the change of foreign policy has failed to increase and obtain the right form of development support needed for improving forest and wildlife management. The failure is largely attributed by the development support not being able to address livelihood and vulnerability issues such as improved human health, employment opportunities, prices, demography and technology of the people residing around the forest and wildlife reserves. The paper, therefore, concludes that harmonisation of key policies of strategic significance including forest and wildlife management, is critical for increasing and obtaining the right form of development support which improves both condition of forest and wildlife reserves and livelihood of local population. The harmonisation would help to align some key policy issues and establish a common policy agenda for Tanzania in forest and wildlife management globally.