We cannot live without a system that grows our food. We cannot flourish without healthy food. In Tanzania, like elsewhere in Africa, agriculture is the engine that drives growth and empowers people with food self-sufficiency, maintains stewardship over the environment and builds a sense of community belonging.
Farmers constitute 85 per cent of the country's workforce and they are the foundation of its economy, and the key to triggering its broader growth.
Research shows that increasing agricultural productivity is the most effective way to reduce poverty afflicting the majority rural dwellers in this great East African nation.
In fact, agricultural stakeholders say the sector offers the country its best opportunity to turn a vicious cycle of poverty into a virtuous cycle of development. That is why leaders, policymakers and bilateral donors support the country's initiatives aimed at boosting agriculture and food security.
Tanzania is ready to borrow a leaf from Korea’s economic growth model that uses natural resources in a sustainable manner towards industrialisation with minimal environmental risks.
Korea embraced the Green Growth Initiative towards a vision of ‘Low Carbon, Green Growth’ as the core of the country’s new vision on the 60th anniversary of the founding nation.
Minister of State in Vice President’s Office, Union Matters and Environment, January Makamba said in Dar es Salaam recently that the government will promote sectors that have the most potential for job creation and capable of addressing resource efficiency and environment.
“As we move towards industrialisation within the next ten years, we’ll also be in the forefront in bringing about Green Growth through resource efficiency policies and strategies,” said the minister at the opening of the fourth Korean Green Growth Annual event in the city.
The initiative is currently executed jointly by the Korean Green Growth Trust Fund and the World Bank. Both partners share a common goal to reduce poverty and promote shared economic prosperity in environmentally responsible and socially inclusive way.
Indeed there is a lot to learn from Korea as the East Asian nation has become a leading global force in promoting green growth as a new development paradigm.
We should also envisage having one industry’s waste becoming another’s raw material.
It is equally important that the government should ensure that Green Growth catalyses investment and innovations which underpin sustainable growth and give rise to new economic opportunities while taking full account of the social consequences of greening the growth dynamic economies.
We all understand that green growth is not a replacement of sustainable development agenda but rather ensures that natural resource assets can deliver their full economic potential on a sustainable manner.
Korea was holding its Annual Korea Green Growth Event for the first time in Africa to showcase progress made in various countries in turning green growth concepts into viable solutions for developing countries.
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