Fifth phase regional relations facelift a more productive learning

 It is not a simple continuation of economic diplomacy but its revamping, where the specific areas of cooperation are designed and worked out, with the relevant areas of technological delivery and skills being the principal aspects. The financing is more readily available with savings from imports of fossil fuels and cutting out vast wastage of public funds.

There was a working visit of Moroccan King Mohamed VI where a series of cooperation areas were agreed, with these elements of technology to be used, personnel and transfer of skills likely to come up prominently. On the basis of this background there was a similar engagement with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, whose country the host president showed had remarkable parallels with Tanzania in spheres of ancient history, tourism attractions and size of territory or even population. Its physical limitations and natural difficulties surpass ours by nautical miles, while their performance as a state or economy equally surpasses ours by comparable magnitudes.

While a breadth of programmes agreed are to be conducted at governmental level, in significant areas they relate to openings in economy where companies from those countries obtain zones in which to make investments in view of accessing markets of their own home country for instance when Egypt sets up a meat industry. The reason is to avoid a complicated process of importing cattle or frozen meat haulage the way flowers are flows to European Union markets from local and neighboring airports before they start withering. That means a local market opening is also likely, especially at supermarket level where imported beef is available from different sources.

The difference between these regional relations and traditional economic diplomacy that the country has followed since the third phase government especially is that earlier there were donors on the one hand, where government has a freehand with the aid cash it obtains, as loans or grants. At the same time there were independent investors putting their cash into mining, energy or any other industry where the government oversees only the regulatory aspects, not having any specific engagements relating to ownership, technology and skills transfer. That means we remained what we were, and foreign stakeholders would adapt to our ways, chiefly.

With the new thrust in economic diplomacy, the grant or loan element is minimised for regional relations though it is still prevalent for traditional relations with the West and the Far East to a considerable extent. In the latter a number of working relations at project level have at times been initiated but they aren’t the modus operandi of economic ties, which is however the case with the recent uplift and strategic revamping of regional economic ties. These engagements have also added meat to diplomatic skeletal projects like negotiations on the river Nile, to wit.

When we conduct such talks meanwhile Egypt has a visible interest in the water infrastructure in the country on account of having investments, there is a different climate in such talks. Until now only legal precepts were being applied while the stakeholders had little in common, which is no longer the case. It means a shift in deliberations in the African Union to greater purpose, utility.