Regional meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Regional meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, May 7, 2009
Introduction
As part of the global “Rework the World” initiative, a regional meeting was held in Dar es Salaam on May 7th 2009. The meeting brought together more than hundred participants, including entrepreneurs, youth leaders, investors, scientists, business leaders, media representatives and political decision-makers from Tanzania and other East African countries.
The meeting created important opportunities to explore possibilities for new collaborative initiatives tackling the interrelated challenges of employment, development, economic growth and environment. The aim was to establish a platform where participants from different sectors and networks could come together and create new links between ideas and resources. Therefore, the meeting was structured around four highly interactive thematic sessions focusing on 1) reworking energy, 2) reworking land, 3) reworking skills and 4) reworking finance.
The meeting was organized in partnership between Tällberg Foundation, YES, University of Dar es Salaam Entrepreneurship Centre, and Femina HIP, and was endorsed by the Tanzanian Ministry of Labour, Employment and Youth Development.
The meeting
The meeting began with brief opening remarks from the organising team and from the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Youth Development, followed by a panel discussion on the converging challenges on ecosystems degradation, the global economic crisis and unemployment. Short presentations of future visions and challenges for each of the four thematic sessions (energy, land, skills and finance) then kicked off the working groups.
After three hours of group conversations, brainstorming and idea generation, the four groups reconvened to share insights and ways forward. Finally, during a reception hosted by the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Youth Development, informal follow-up conversations took place.
The outcomes
In the four thematic groups, key challenges and ideas were outlined:
The Rework Energy group focused on access to affordable lighting in rural areas and opportunities to scale up solar energy lighting enterprises. The discussion covered:
-The challenge of developing a solar energy market in Tanzania, including reaching and educating customers where there is little awareness of the benefits of solar energy
-Achieving economies of scale in the energy sector while maintaining high quality of products. Addressing the lack of access to finance/credit for small entrepreneurs and consumers
-Leveraging existing training schemes to help young entrepreneurs develop solar lighting businesses
In the Rework Skills group, the focus was on using media to enhance skills, and the discussions included the following:
-How to improve coordination between skills building initiatives - there are many training initiatives for youth and communities but little coordination between them.
-How to use the entertainment media – a successful approach to capture people’s attention – to effectively train youth in the areas of green jobs, or to communicate important information for entrepreneurship development.
-How to overcome the disconnection between related areas such as entrepreneurship skills and financial education that could foster synergies in addressing youth unemployment problems.
The Rework Land group explored a wide range of challenges and initiatives relating to sustainable use of land and land ownership, including:
-How to promote value addition in agriculture rather than farming for subsistence - about 90% of all Tanzanians depend on land for farming, yet the land is underutilized, misused or not used at all
-The scaling up of sustainable charcoal production solutions – as about 90% of all Tanzanians depend on charcoal as a source of energy, the traditional charcoal business is threatening forest resources as well as affecting the environment at large.
-Despite formal land ownership regulations, there is a problem of implementation. Mindsets and attitudes contribute to unfair distribution of land. Information and education – possibly using media differently - is key to achieve change
The Rework Finance group raised the overarching question – ”where is the money” – and outlined the following key challenges and ideas:
-Most small businesses experience problems accessing formal financing due to lack of information and due to the fact that many enterprises are not formalized. The development of peer to peer trust networks among small businesses could create the level of trust required for financing
-There are no clear avenues for scaling-up the existing financial models to enable financial institutions reach youth, small businesses and farmers. The development of online networks could however become a shortcut to access international finance
New partnerships and initiatives
As a concrete result of the meeting, new possible relationships, partnerships and collaboration opportunities emerged. Among these were:
1. Building a youth-driven solar economy in East Africa
Solar lighting ventures such as D.light and SolarAid operating in East Africa established contact with the youth movement YES Kenya as well as with the popular media platform Femina HIP in Tanzania. They brainstormed on an ambition to work with youth movements to train youth entrepreneurs to raise awareness about the use and benefits of solar energy with the perspective of eventually becoming distributors of the product. These actors are now exploring a more formal partnership as well as a series of pilot projects in a number of East African countries.
As part of this effort, a number of articles on solar energy are featured in the Fema Magazine July 2009 issue (the flagship magazine of Femina HIP reaching an estimated 2 million young Tanzanians). Furthermore, an episode of Fema TV talk show (broadcast weekly on national TV) on solar energy is under production. The next step will now be to connect with other youth networks - such as the Tanzanian Youth Coalition - as well as mainstream companies - such as mobile phone operators - to expand the outreach of the model.
2. Using popular media to inspire young people to become entrepreneurs
The vision of this emerging joint initiative is to use the power of popular mass media to promote entrepreneurship and business skills among young people - something that usually relies on training and face to face interaction. The meeting displayed different entrepreneurial solutions that are using mass media to inspire young entrepreneurs through real-life stories, testimonials and role models - with the ambition to mobilize millions.
Targeting youth and civil society, the popular media platform Femina HIP (reaching youth throughout the country through print, TV, radio and web) is exploring opportunities to use its established media platform to channel information, inspiration and skills about entrepreneurship, financial literacy and job creation. As part of the Rework meeting, Femina HIP, the University of Dar es Salaam Entrepreneurship Centre and Tanzania Youth Coalition started to explore the possibility of using the media platform to channel entrepreneurship training on a large-scale. Furthermore, a collaborating with the Financial Sector Deepening Trust to explore possibilities of increasing financial literacy through popular mass media is also being initiated.
The above two examples of joint initiatives are also being taken forward as part of the Tällberg Forum in June 2009 in Sweden.
In addition, this meeting has generated collaborative ideas and connections in e.g. the areas of expansion of ecological charcoal, and new finance mechanisms.
At the meeting, ILO presented its scheme of master trainers, and brought to the meeting around 15 trainers from across East Africa, who participated actively in the thematic sessions. Furthermore, ILO announced their ambition to leverage this programme to create and support youth entrepreneurship as part of their work with the Danish Commission for Africa.
We want to hear from you.
The ambition is to take the most promising outcomes and initiatives from this meeting – and other regional meetings - and to further engage them in the process towards the YES 2010 Summit in Sweden.
We invite you to remain engaged in the Rework process, and would be grateful if you could point us to other results and opportunities that have emerged from the Tanzania meeting, which can be developed further in the run up to YES 2010.
To share ideas and other results from the meeting, please send an email to:
info@reworktheworld.org