Background: 

This Declaration summarizes key lessons, decisions and commitments emerging from the deliberations of the three days’ international conference on “Social Protection: Building Effective and Sustainable Systems for Equitable Growth” held in Arusha, Tanzania between 15th-17th December, 2014. 

Taking into account experiences shared from across Africa, Bangladesh and Afghanistan that presented rich and comprehensive data on the effectiveness of social protection (SP) interventions, the Declaration shall be used as Guide to Action for Tanzania in promoting social protection and addressing inequality, inequity, discrimination, marginalization and other forms of deprivation that limit the potential of Tanzanian men, women and children. 
Commitments: 

The Government of Tanzania commits to the following goals, strategies and actions

GOALS: 

· Poverty reduction and human capital development: Tanzania where poverty is reduced at an accelerated pace to achieve the targets in line with the VISION 2025 (mainland) and VISION 2020 (Zanzibar); future generation being increasingly liberated from inter-generational poverty and exclusion through investments in children’s health and nutrition, education, HIV-prevention/ treatment and other social services; structural transformation of the economy that spurs inclusive growth where economic opportunities are created for all and employment opportunities strengthened, especially for women and youth. 

· Governance: Continuing to strengthen accountability and responsiveness of government institutions to the people in line with VISION 2025 (mainland) and VISION 2020 (Zanzibar); and continuing with strengthening citizens’ voice through deepening democracy and interactive participation in governance as a way of guaranteeing that social protection system continues to be strengthened and that it is effectively mainstreamed across sectors.

· Protection: Where all children, women, and men are protected from all forms of violence and abuse, including gender-based violence, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), child marriage and child pregnancy, attacks on People With Albinism and killings of the elderly, exploitative labour and human trafficking; where every child and every individual has a birth certificate and hence an identity for prompt action from the state. 

STRATEGIES AND ACTIONS: 

Policy: Tanzania reaffirms her commitment to adopt the National Policy Framework for Social Protection with a clear action-oriented agenda, with the aim of undertaking reforms of existing social protection measures to reach the poor and vulnerable better. The framework shall progressively extend coverage of social protection measures to all, prioritizing outreach to more vulnerable and excluded groups including those in the informal sector and those with disability and albinism. 

This framework will advance the commitments to equity and pro-poor services as espoused within the Constitution, national strategies (like MKUKUTA/MKUZA, Five Year Development Plans and Social Security Policy) and various sector planning documents (Education Sector Plan, Health Sector Plan, Agricultural Sector plans/strategies, Water Sector Development Plan, National Plan of Action for Most Vulnerable Children, the National Plan of Action for Prevention and Response to Violence against Children and Zanzibar Social Protection Policy). 

This national commitment aligns pro-poor goals of the key social sectors like health, water, education and those of social protection programmes like TASAF. 

Planning, budgeting and implementation: Tanzania reaffirms her commitment to progressively and sustainable enhance national investments in social protection for the poor and vulnerable as enshrined in the Livingstone Accord and the Africa Union (AU) Framework on Social Protection. 

Tanzania shall continue to streamline her budgeting to make it more pro-poor. In this regard, related cost efficiency and cost-effectiveness measures will be implemented and further strengthened. There will be sincere allocation and utilization of the growing national wealth to enhancing human capital accumulation through measures like social protection. 

Planning and budgeting processes of national ministries and sectors like health and social welfare, education, water and others will pay special attention to incorporating social protection as a strategy for ensuring that the poor, disadvantaged and marginalized population (vulnerable children, people with disability, People with Albinism, HIV/AIDS, the elderly etc.) are enabled to access basic and quality social services in health and nutrition, child protection, basic education, health, water and sanitation and employment. Attention to TASAF and other social protection measures will be incorporated within the Big Results Now (BRN) initiatives in Health, Agriculture, Education and Water.

Building upon the current work, Tanzania reaffirms her commitment to ensuring more equitable distribution of budgetary and human resources across local government authorities (LGAs) and within LGAs especially in hard to reach areas in a sustained manner.

Consolidation and reform of the existing social protection programmes: Within the ongoing work of the National Social Protection Framework, the plethora of social protection programmes will be consolidated to minimize duplication/ overlap to improve coverage, targeting, fiscal space and impact. 

Coordination: Tanzania commits herself to enhancing coordination across sectors and central agencies in the Mainland and in Zanzibar to accelerate poverty reduction through social protection measures. Stronger coordination through joint, integrated planning and programming will be critical. 

TASAF and other social protection programmes (like Most Vulnerable Children Programme supported by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare) and social service delivery ministries, will work together through a national social protection coordination mechanism/under the national social protection frameworks ( for both mainland and Zanzibar) to address challenges of poverty, poor development outcomes and inequity. 

Monitoring and Evaluation: Enabling the poor and the vulnerable to access equal opportunities requires reliable, updated monitoring and reporting of their situation. 

The Government commits to:

· Systematically measuring the impact of social protection programs on male and female children, adolescent, youth and old-age beneficiaries of social protection programs across sectors, including but not limited to education, health and nutrition, HIV/AIDS and child protection, through national surveys (Demographic Health Surveys and Household Budgeting surveys), impact evaluation and operational research. Monitoring should be strengthened to track those who are in imminent threat of attack and need assistance and rescuing.

· Undertaking prompt and decisive action to mitigate such threats and strengthen protection for all including women, elderly and People with Albinism. 

· Addressing overlaps in data collection, moving towards a single registry of data collected on vulnerable households and individuals.

Monitoring and evaluation frameworks that track national progress (like Demographic Health Survey, MKUKUTA/MKUZA Review, MDG reporting, Health Monitoring Information Systems, Education Management Information Systems, Water Management Information System and other administrative data sets) will incorporate dis-aggregated indicators and data - spatially and across income quin tiles. 

Learning and continual improvement: Tanzania commits herself to continually improving the social protection measures through exchange of learning and experience within Africa and across the globe. 

Partnership: The Government calls upon development partners and civil society for fruitful and effective collaboration and coordination in the implementation of this Declaration. 

Signed by: 


Hon. Saada Mkuya Salum (MP)
Minister of Finance

(On behalf of the Government of Tanzania)

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