CSOs CALL FOR A PRO-POOR AND PRO-ENVIRONMENT SAGCOT INITIATIVE
Press Release
November 1, 2012
ARUSHA-Twenty civil society organizations have provided recommendations on ways to strengthen and improve the social and environmental aspects of an intended public-private initiative that aims to address food security and development in Tanzania's Southern Corridor.
On October 31st, the group of CSOs submitted their feedback to the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (known as ‘SAGCOT') in response to a call for feedback on SAGCOT's draft "Green Growth Investment Framework" (known as the ‘Greenprint').The CSO's commend SAGCOT for producing a framework that outlines strategies for environmentally sustainable and equitable investments, but they call for more detail, clarity and strength to ensure that this initiative truly is sustainable, broad-based and pro-poor.
The recommendations include calls for actions that will avoid land grabbing or loss of village land, strategies to strengthen participation and involvement of small and medium scale agriculture and livestock investors and the use of independent and outside monitoring systems that will include multi-stakeholder engagement.
"It is important that civil society engages with this important initiative, which covers roughly 300,000 square kilometers in southern Tanzania," says Carol Sorensen, Technical Advisor for the Tanzania Natural Resource Forum (TNRF). "SAGCOT has potential to bring real development to the area if it is genuinely participatory and based on an open stakeholder dialogue. But there is also a risk that without strong management or safeguards it could lead to land grabbing, disenfranchisement of local women and men and environmental degradation," she says.
In response to SAGCOT's call for feedback on the Greenprint, TNRF hosted a CSO workshop that brought together representatives from civil society to discuss the green growth framework and to develop joint recommendations to ensure it is in civil societies' best interest.
"It was inspiring to see a group of committed and passionate people come together in such a short amount of time to provide feedback and comments on this Greenprint," explained Esther Yamat, Executive Director of TNRF. "SAGCOT was generous to grant us an extension for providing CSO feedback and I hope this means they are serious about considering CSOs messages and recommendations for ways to strengthen the initiative and safeguard the rights of Tanzanians."
The feedback and recommendations cover a number of areas, including investment guidelines and sources of investment for green growth, land and water planning and allocation, environmental issues and the role of smallholder farmers, foresters, pastoralists and other land users.
The feedback and list of supporting CSOs can be viewed online at www.tnrf.org/Greenprint.pdf
Contact: info@tnrf.org