Tanzania   Term Paper ID:27438 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Describes the post-colonial economic growth of Tanzania, which took a "socialist" path to development. Assesses the positives & negatives of that choice.... More...

3 Pages / 675 Words 3 sources, 7 Citations, APA Format $12.00 Return to List of Papers

Paper Abstract: Describes the post-colonial economic growth of Tanzania, which took a "socialist" path to development. Assesses the positives & negatives of that choice. Paper Introduction: Tanzania is an African nation that took a "socialist" path to development. Tanzania is ruled by one political party, the CCM, and it exercises supreme authority over all state organs. Its constitution became effective in 1977, and the principal doctrines are that all human beings are equal, that every individual has a right to dignity and respect, and that only with socialism and self-reliance can a society of free and equal citizens be constructed. The party has a broad membership, and any citizen eighteen years or older can become a member by accepting the aims, beliefs, and objectives of the CCM (Kaplan, 1978, 104-105). Prior to the Arusha Declaration, development policies for Tanzania had encouraged extensive private investment and large financial contributions from abroad, and these orientations were Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. New African Yearbook 1991-92. Chad is a country under military rulethat has not pursued a socialist course, but neither has this country beenable to overcome a base of poverty and underdevelopment. One of the reasons why Chad has been unable toimprove its economy any more than this is the continuing war that ravagesthe area, and any successful economic development for the country as awhole depends on the restoration of peace (Van Baren, 1992, 71-72). The second plan wasless optimistic than the first and set an annual growth rate of only 6.5percent, but in fact the GDP increased at an average annual rate of only4.8 percent between 1969 and 1974 (Yeager, 1982, 8 -81). The productive goals of the plan were notachieved in part because of such uncontrollable factors as unexpectedlyhigh population increases, inclement weather conditions, falling exportprices, and shortfalls in anticipated foreign aid and investment. Since the Arusha Declaration, the fundamental policy position hasbeen that disparities between urban and rural incomes must be minimized andthat significant differences in wages and salaries generally must beprevented from developing. The immediate goals were price and wagestability and a reduction of the balance-of-payments deficit to anacceptable level. Economic growth during this period wasconfined largely to the small industrial sector, and public spending reliedon a steady flow of foreign aid (Yeager, 1982, 8 ). This would change thefactoral terms of tropical trade and raise the prices of the traditionalagricultural exports and at the same time would create an agriculturalsurplus that would support industrial production for the home market. Tanzania is an African nation that took a "socialist" path todevelopment. The Third Five-Year Plan started in 1976 after an interim strategyhad been pursued from mid-1974 to enable the country to recover from thelosses of preceding years. The country had madea national commitment to socialism and self-reliance, and now the urbancomponent stressed import substitution and capital-goods production in alargely nationalized sector. Tanzania: An African Experiment. The countries of Africa face a variety of difficulties, from war todrought, and many were left after the colonial period with a minimalinfrastructure and a variety of tensions related to earlier history.Socialist economic systems have little economic backing to achieve theirgoals, but many market-oriented countries as well do not have the economicbase they need to succeed. The party has a broad membership, and any citizeneighteen years or older can become a member by accepting the aims, beliefs,and objectives of the CCM (Kaplan, 1978, 1 4-1 5). Datawere also lacking for measuring economic performance, and as a result ill-conceived projects like the village settlement program were implementeduntil their futility was apparent. the economy showed a strongly dualisticcharacter in the late 197 s with the subsistence sector accounting for wellover a quarter of GDP. Its constitution becameeffective in 1977, and the principal doctrines are that all human beingsare equal, that every individual has a right to dignity and respect, andthat only with socialism and self-reliance can a society of free and equalcitizens be constructed. Edison, New Jersey: Hunter Publishing, 1992.Yeager, Roger. The second Five Year Plan started with the Arusha Declaration, an themain features of the new approach were to eliminate low-productivityworkers in food by transforming their productivity. Washington, D.C.: The American University, 1978.Van Baren, Linda. The objectives of the new planwere to resume oil production, stimulate food production (especially ofpoultry and cattle), improve the major roads and the secondary roads, andrestore essential services. Chad does have some oil depositsand important deposits of uranium, wolfram, cassiterite, iron ore, andbauxite, but the nation has not been very successful at exploiting these.In 1985 at a meeting in Geneva, a group of donors pledged $45 milliontoward Chad's 1986-199 development plan. Implementation of thefive-year plan did not go as expected, and the net result net result was awidening of the gap between the incomes of urban wage earners and those ofsmallhold farmers (Kaplan, 1978, 19 ). Chad today hasone of the least developed industrial sectors of any country in Africa, andmanufacturing accounted for only 15 percent of GDP in 1987, related almostentirely to cotton and food processing. Now eighty-four percent of all industrialinvestment was to be made by the government, aiming toward a 7 percenttotal increase in productivity. The First Five Year Plan from 1964 to 1969 soughtto transform the economy by attracting private investment and foreignassistance for capital-intensive manufacturing, agricultural, andinfrastructural projects. Prior to the Arusha Declaration, development policies for Tanzaniahad encouraged extensive private investment and large financialcontributions from abroad, and these orientations were in keeping with themacroeconomic premises of the First Development Decade declared by theUnited Nations in 196 . Agriculture was the vital element in thissecond plan, however, and the first plan had placed an emphasis onmechanized cash-crop production that was now rejected in favor of self-helpcontributions to increased cash- and food-crop yields. Tanzania is ruled by one political party, the CCM, and itexercises supreme authority over all state organs. Inequality was lessened under the second plan, but thethird plan called for more emphasis on working efficiency, self-help laborcontributions, and profitability in the nationalized governmentcorporations (Yeager, 1982, 82-83). A principalexplanation for the comparatively low rate of GDP growth was the emphasison slow-return infrastructure projects (Kaplan, 1978, 19 -192). The pursuit of a more market-oriented economy in Africa, however, isno guarantee of success, either. Thenew plan followed this logic but still lacked access to politicallyacceptable investment capital, and the new plan emphasized wealth-generating industry and labor-intensive agriculture. Tanzania: A Country Study. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1982.----------------------- 1 ReferencesKaplan, Irving. Overall growth in the GDP has been unimpressive inview of the high level of gross domestic investment attained. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.