ACT and PPP

Agricultural Council of Tanzania believes that the agricultural sector in Tanzania can benefit from collaboration between public and private partners. The public sector, business and civil society each have important roles in improving the environment for the sector, and they can benefit by pooling their resources, capacities and know-how. ACT therefore urges participation in public-private partnerships.

Public-Private Partnership is a challenge because:

  • The PPP concept is yet to diffuse within and among different actors at the district level
  • PPP is a new phenemenon in Tanzania - it will take time to change the mindset of actors  

    • ImageTanzania Fertilizer Partnership:
    A P    ublic-Private Partnership to find fertilizer’s first track
    ACT is the coordinator and manager of the Tanzania Fertilizer Partnership - a public-private partnership. TFP comprises various actors in the fertilizer value chain aiming to find the "Fast Track" in the fertilizer value chain.

    Five pilot districts in the "Fast Track" project
    The activities in the Tanzania Fertilizer Partnership are being piloted in the five districts of Songea Rural, Mbeya Rural, Mbarali, Mufindi and Kilombero to develop a value chain implementation model that could be rolled out on a larger national scale. The overall implementation period has been January-June 2007.

    Main component: Training and capacity building
    The main component of the "Fast Track" fertilizer project in 2007 has been training and capacity building of about 300 actors at district level. It involves the following sub-activities:

  • Stakeholders’ sensitization and awareness creation
  • Enhancing proper use of agricultural inputs
  • Business management skills
  • Credit mobilization and linkages
  • Other support activities: Output marketing, input database management, value chain information flows, dockside handling improvement, commercial banks' awareness and monitoring an evaluation

    • Success from start with fertilizer training
    HIgh turnout of participants at the training workshops – over 90%
    Trained farmers – on their own, they have volunteered to establish demo plots to train other farmers
    Trained farmers are no longer dependent on subsidy fertilizer (what they need is any available fertilizer!)