Tanzanian Advocacy Partnership Program (TAPP)

Please note this is a closed archived program.

November 2001 - September 2005

TAPP Press Release

One of the hallmarks of a democratic society is a government that is responsive to the electorate. In Tanzania this requires an active and articulate civil society on the one hand and a government willingness and ability to incorporate public demands on the other. Civil society organizations (CSOs) are slowly developing a greater role in public affairs, and some government processes are becoming more transparent. The goal of the TAPP program is to build on these positive trends and to further strengthen the capacity of both civil society and government to participate in open and transparent policy making and implementation. The need for increased public participation in government decision-making cuts across all sectors of society and all administrative levels. TAPP will focus on national health, environment and small/medium enterprise priorities to strengthen this fledgling partnership between government and civil society.

TAPP is a program designed to strengthen the capacity of civil society organizations (CSOs) to articulate and represent public interests to the government of Tanzania on selected health, environment, and private-sector policy issues, while fostering an enabling environment for CSO-government partnerships. To this end TAPP works closely with national and local advocacy organizations and networks to develop an indigenous cadre of master trainers and capacity builders, to develop local organizational, managerial, and financial capacity, and to equip local organizations with the requisite skills for sustaining advocacy efforts. The TAPP team supports proactive and sustained civil society advocacy through a combination of customized technical assistance, training, mentoring, and grants.

In 2005 Pact received funding from USAID/Tanzania for expansion of the program to include capacity strengthening for two-faith based organizations and a select group of health facilities on issues of reproductive health (RH) and family planning (FP), as part of Engender Health's ACQUIRE project. Pact's role is to provide organizational development training and mentoring to the health facilities and to assist in mobilizing communities around RH/FP issues with the goal of enhancing awareness and increasing demand for services.

Pact's approach

Pact begins with the application of its trademark organizational capacity assessment (OCA) methodology, which has been adapted to enhance the effectiveness of targeted Tanzanian CSOs at the national, regional, district and community levels. A Pact-trained pool of Tanzanian facilitators applies the OCA to establish a baseline of CSO organizational and advocacy capacities. This enables the Pact team to design interventions that address common obstacles encountered by Tanzanian CSOs in representing community interests through public consultative mechanisms.

Based on OCA results, Pact provides intensive training and technical assistance in the areas of general organizational development, advocacy, financial management, governance and leadership. After a year of capacity strengthening interventions, Pact conducts a second capacity assessment with its partners.

The program also strengthens the NGO sector as a whole by raising awareness among the CSO community about its role in a democratic society. Pact's Legislative Roadmap is a manual for CSOs presenting the complexities of the policy-making and legislative processes in clear layman's terms. The Roadmap, published in Kiswahili and English, identifies points in the legislative process that can be windows of opportunity for advocacy and offers a toolkit of possible actions.

Under the ACQUIRE amendment a wide yet focused array of capacity building efforts is accompanied by a small grants that fund select CSO organizations to undertake targeted advocacy activities. If feasible, the TAPP team will also support the establishment and development of the Tanzania Advocacy Support Center, which will enhance CSO research as well as analytical and communications skills on issues of policy and management.

Interim results

• Organizational Capacity Assessment (OCA). Pact has developed three distinct organizational capacity assessment (OCA) tools for advocacy NGOs, environmental CSOs, and faith-based health facilities. Assessments and reassessments have been conducted with 40 community organizations and fifteen business associations. Seventy Tanzanian consultants have been trained in the OCA facilitation process. Over 85% of the organizations demonstrated improvement in their capacity to perform effective advocacy by strengthening their governance, financial management, sustainability, and external relations upon the second application of OCA.
• Training and technical assistance. Pact has conducted 56 capacity building events for more than 1,500 participants, including 17 workshops, 24 strategic planning seminars, and 15 other gatherings. With Pact's support 24 partners have developed strategic plans that clearly define their mission and vision and outline their business and development plans.
• Advocacy subgrants. Pact has disbursed six subgrants totaling over $250,000 to local organizations for advocacy activities, including the first-ever parliamentary lobbying campaign on legislation affecting the enabling environment, implemented by a network of NGOs; a campaign developed by student artists to popularize the messages from the national HIV/AIDS policy; and a film on the juvenile justice system focusing on children's rights, campaign on the rights of the disabled and a campaign to increase the number of women in leadership positions in Zanzibar.
• Legislative Roadmap. Pact has published 15,000 copies of the Legislative Roadmap, a two-volume civic education manual, in Kiswahili and English, explaining the functions of the branches of government, the lawmaking process, the budgeting process, and the role of civil society in influencing policy. USAID rated the Legislative Roadmap one of its top success stories in Africa for 2004.
• Media campaign. In an effort to improve NGO credibility and the enabling environment for NGOs in Tanzania, Pact is conducting a media campaign that works with journalists and various media outlets to report on CSO success stories. CSOs also receive training and resources to facilitate better sharing of their stories.
• Gender issues. Pact has worked with the women members of the House of Representatives in Zanzibar to share ideas and strategies for best representing their constituent interests. Pact also conducted a leadership and advocacy skills training for women House of Representative members on Zanzibar to increase their ability to work with their constituents.
• Business advocacy plans. Pact's partner, CIPE, has helped local business coalitions in 33 districts to develop and implement advocacy plans of action. In each district and region, CIPE partnered with the Tanzanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry to facilitate public-private dialogue and business roundtables that brought together key public and private sector officials to discuss key issues.