Country Profile

The United Republic of Tanzania (Swahili: Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is in East Africa. It is bordered by Kenya and Uganda on the north, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the west, and Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique on the south. To the east it borders the Indian Ocean.

The country's name comes from a combination of Tanganyika, which is the large mainland territory, and Zanzibar, the offshore archipelago. The two former British colonies united in 1964, forming the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. Later the same year the country was renamed the United Republic of Tanzania.

President: Jakaya Kikwete (2005) Prime Minister: Mizengo Pinda (2008) Land area: 342,100 sq mi (886,039 sq km); total area: 364,898 sq mi (945,087 sq km) Population (2007 est.): 38,139,640 (growth rate: 1.8%); birth rate: 37.3/1000; infant mortality rate: 94.5/1000; life expectancy: 46.1; density per sq mi: 111 Capital (2003 est.): Dodoma, 164,500. Largest city (2003 est.): Dar es Salaam, 2,489,800 Monetary unit: Tanzanian shilling

Languages: Swahili, English (both official); Arabic; many local languages Ethnicity/race: Mainland: native African 99% (includes 95% Bantu, consisting of well over 100 tribes), Asian, European, and Arab 1%; Zanzibar: Arab, native African, mixed Religions: Mainland: Christian 30%, Islam 35%, indigenous 35%; Zanzibar: more than 99% Islam Literacy rate: 78% (2003 est.)

Economic summary:

GDP/PPP (2007 est.): $48.92 billion; per capita $1,255.

GDP nominal (2007 est):$16.69 billion; per capita $428

Real growth rate: 7.3%. Inflation: 7%. Unemployment: n.a. Arable land: 5%. Agriculture: coffee, sisal, tea, cotton, pyrethrum (insecticide made from chrysanthemums), cashew nuts, tobacco, cloves, corn, wheat, cassava (tapioca), bananas, fruits, vegetables; cattle, sheep, goats. Labor force: 20.04 million; agriculture 80%, industry and services 20% (2002 est.). Industries: agricultural processing (sugar, beer, cigarettes, sisal twine); diamond, gold, and iron mining, salt, soda ash; cement, oil refining, shoes, apparel, wood products, fertilizer. Natural resources: hydropower, tin, phosphates, iron ore, coal, diamonds, gemstones, gold, natural gas, nickel. Exports: $1.581 billion f.o.b. (2005 est.): gold, coffee, cashew nuts, manufactures, cotton. Imports: $2.391 billion f.o.b. (2005 est.): consumer goods, machinery and transportation equipment, industrial raw materials, crude oil. Major trading partners: India, Spain, Netherlands, Japan, UK, China, Kenya, South Africa, UAE, U.S. (2004).

Tanzania is member of Commonwealth of Nations.

History

Tanzania as it exists today consists of the union of what was once Tanganyika and the islands of Zanzibar. Formerly a German colony from the 1880s through 1919, the post-World War 1 accords and the League of Nations charter designated the area a British Mandate (except for a small area in the northwest, which was ceded to Belgium and later became Rwanda and Burundi).

British rule came to an end in 1961 after a relatively peaceful (compared with neighbouring Kenya, for instance) transition to independence. At the forefront of the transition was Julius Nyerere, a former schoolteacher and intellectual who entered politics in the early 1950s. In 1953 he was elected president of Tanganyika African        

Association (TAA), a civic organization dominated by civil servants, that he had helped found while a student at Makerere University. In 1954 he transformed TAA into the politically oriented Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). TANU's main objective was to achieve national sovereignty for Tanganyika.  A campaign to register new members was launched, and within a year TANU had become the leading political organisation in the  country. Nyerere became Minister of British-administered Tanganyika in 1960 and continued as Prime Minister when Tanganyika became officially independent in 1961.

After Zanzibar Revolution overthrowing the Sultan in neighboring Zanzibar, which had become independent in 1963, the island merged with mainland Tanganyika to form the nation of Tanzania on April 26, 1964. The union of the two, hitherto separate, regions was controversial among many Zanzibaris (even those sympathetic to the revolution) but was accepted by both the Nyerere government and the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar owing to shared political values and goals.

After the fall of commodity prices and the sharp spike of oil prices in the late 1970s, Tanzania's economy took a turn for the worse. An invasion by Ugandan troops in Nov. 1978 was followed by a counterattack in Jan. 1979, in which 5,000 Tanzanian troops were joined by 3,000 Ugandan exiles opposed to President Idi Amin. Within a month, full-scale war developed. Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere kept troops in Uganda in open support of former Ugandan president Milton Obote, despite protests from opposition groups, until the national elections in Dec. 1980.

The 1980s left the country in disarray as economic turmoil shook the commitments to social justice and it began to appear as if the project of socialism was a lost cause. Although it was a deeply unpopular decision, the Tanzanian government agreed to accept conditional loans from the International Monetary Fund in the mid 1980s and undergo "Structural Adjustment", which amounted in concrete terms to a large-scale liquidation of the public sector (rather large by African standards), and deregulation of financial and agricultural markets. Educational as well as health services, however modest they may have been under the previous model of development, were not spared from cuts required by IMF conditionalities.

From the mid 1980s through the early 1990s Tanzania's GDP grew modestly, although Human Development Indexes fell and poverty indicators increased.

In Nov. 1985, Nyerere stepped down as president. Ali Hassan Mwinyi, his vice president, succeeded him. Running unopposed, Mwinyi was elected president in October. Shortly thereafter plans were announced to study the benefits of instituting a multiparty democracy, and in Oct. 1995 the country's first multiparty elections since independence took place.

President Benjamin William Mkapa (1995–2005) sought to increase economic productivity while dealing with serious pollution problems and deforestation. With more than one million people infected with HIV, AIDS care and prevention have been major public health issues. On foreign policy, Tanzania has taken a leading diplomatic role in East Africa, hosting peace talks for the factions fighting in neighboring Burundi. The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is located in the town of Arusha. In Oct. 2000, Mkapa was easily reelected. In 2002, opposition leaders and foreign donors criticized the president's costly new $21 million personal jet.

In 2005 presidential elections, foreign minister Jakaya Kikwete of the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) Party won with 80% of the vote.

Prime Minister Lowassa resigned in February 2008 over a scandal involving an American energy company, Richmond Development, which was hired to provide Tanzania with generators to supply electricity to the country during a power shortage. The company never began the operation, yet Lowassa urged the government to renew the contract. Mizengo Pinda replaced Lowassa as prime minister.

 
Politics

Tanzania's president and National Assembly members are elected concurrently by direct popular vote for five-year terms. The president appoints a prime minister who serves as the government's leader in the National Assembly. The president selects his cabinet from among National Assembly members. The Constitution also empowers him to nominate ten non-elected members of Parliament, who also are eligible to become cabinet members. Elections for president and all National Assembly seats were held in December 2005.

The unicameral National Assembly elected in 2000 has 295 members. These 295 members include the Attorney General, five members elected from the Zanzibar House of Representatives to participate in the Parliament, the special women's seats which are made up of 20% of the seats that a given party has in the House, 181 constituent seats of members of Parliament from the mainland, and 50 seats from Zanzibar. Also in the list are forty-eight appointed for women and the seats for the 10 nominated members of Parliament. At present, the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi holds about 93% of the seats in the Assembly. Laws passed by the National Assembly are valid for Zanzibar only in specifically designated union matters.

Zanzibar's House of Representatives has jurisdiction over all non-union matters. There are currently seventy-six members in the House of Representatives in Zanzibar, including fifty elected by the people, ten appointed by the president of Zanzibar, five ex officio members, and an attorney general appointed by the president. In May 2002, the government increased the number of special seats allocated to women from ten to fifteen, which will increase the number of House of Representatives members to eighty-one. Ostensibly, Zanzibar's House of Representatives can make laws for Zanzibar without the approval of the union government as long as it does not involve union-designated matters. The terms of office for Zanzibar's president and House of Representatives also are five years. The semiautonomous relationship between Zanzibar and the union is a relatively unusual system of government.

Tanzania has a five-level judiciary combining the jurisdictions of tribal, Islamic, and British common law. Appeal is from the primary courts through the district courts, resident magistrate courts, to the high courts, and Court of Appeals. Judges are appointed by the Chief Justice, except those for the Court of Appeals and the High Court who are appointed by the president. The Zanzibari court system parallels the legal system of the union, and all cases tried in Zanzibari courts, except for those involving constitutional issues and Islamic law, can be appealed to the Court of Appeals of the union. A commercial court was established in September 1999 as a division of the High Court.

 
Economy

The economy is mostly based on agriculture, which accounts for more than half of GDP, provides 85% (approximately) of exports, and employs 80% (approximately) of the workforce. Topography and climatic conditions, however, limit cultivated crops to only 4% of the land area. The nation has many natural resources including gold and natural gas. Recent headway has been made in the extraction of natural gas has taken place recently in this decade as gas is drawn into the commercial capital, Dar Es Salaam and exported to various markets overseas.

Lack of overall development however has hampered the extraction of these various resources, and even up to the present there has been action on their part to develop the natural resource sector but no major quantifiable results. Industry is mainly limited to processing agricultural products and light consumer goods.

Tanzania has vast amounts of natural resources including gold deposits and diamonds. Tanzania is also known for the Tanzanite gemstones. Tanzania has dozens of beautiful national parks like the world famous Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, that generate income with a large tourism sector that plays a vital part in the economy. Growth from 1991 to 1999 featured a pickup in industrial production and a substantial increase in output of minerals, led by gold.

Commercial production of natural gas from the Songo Songo island in the Indian Ocean off the Rufiji Delta commenced 2004, with natural gas being pumped in a pipeline to the commercial capital Dar es Salaam, with the bulk of it being converted to electricity by the public utility and private operators. A new gas field is being brought on stream in Mnazi Bay.

Recent public sector and banking reforms, and revamped and new legislative frameworks have all helped increase private-sector growth and investment. Short-term economic progress also depends on curbing corruption and cutting back on unnecessary public spending.

Prolonged drought during the early years of the 21st century has severely reduced electricity generation capacity (some 60% of Tanzania's electricity supplies are generated by hydro-electric schemes). During 2006 Tanzania suffered a crippling series of "load-shedding" or power rationing because of the shortfall of generated power, largely because of insufficient hydro-electric generation. Plans to increase gas- and coal-fueled generation capacity are likely to take some years to implement, and growth is forecast to be increased to seven per cent per year, and perhaps eight or more.

Tanzania is part of the East African Community and a potential member of the planned East African Federation.

 
Environment

Tanzania has considerable wildlife habitat, including much of the Serengeti plain, where the white-bearded wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus mearnsi) and other bovids participate in a large-scale annual migration. Up to 250,000 wildebeest perish each year in the long and arduous movement to find forage in the dry season.

Tanzania is also home to 130 amphibian and over 275 reptile species, many of them strictly endemic and included in the IUCN Red Lists of different countries. Tanzania has developed a Biodiversity Action Plan to address species conservation.

 

 

(Source: www.wikipedia.org)