Tanzania’s Mining Sector Reforms: Towards or Away from Mwalimu Nyerere’s Ujamaa Ideology

Abstract

Due to economic hardships Tanzania has been experiencing, which became particularly acute in the early 1980s, a number of strategies were devised to improve the prospects for development through rigorous and wide-ranging reforms in almost all sectors of the economy, mining sector inclusive. This paper discusses Mining Sector Reforms reflecting on Mwalimu Nyerere’s legacy. Specifically, it focuses on how these reforms have affected the mining sector and how the reforms are in agreement with what Tanzania, founding father Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere has advocated in relation to resources governance. This paper introduces the reader to the theoretical issues on government and economic reforms. In addition, it provides an overview of Tanzania’s reform of the economy following the economic hardships of the late 1970s and the 1980s.  Generally, the paper has attempted to review Tanzania’s mining sector on basis of Mwalimu Nyerere’s belief that a country should benefit from her natural resource base. In particular, the paper examines issues of ethics and resource governance as advocated by Mwalimu Nyerere. In addition to the above, the paper further highlights reforms in Tanzania’s mining sector by analyzing successes, failures and lessons learnt both before and after the reforms. To get a better understanding of the above, issues around the legal and policy environment in relation to the mining sector have been analyzed in the context of reforms in Tanzania. The paper also discusses other cross cutting (legal and policy) reforms made in Tanzania in the last fifty plus years of independence, which have impacted on Tanzania’s mining as per Mwalimu Nyerere’s perspective.

Keywords: Self-reliance, mining, reforms, legacy, Ujamaa na kujitegemea Ideology