Promote social welfare to develop, say dons

Dar es Salaam. If Tanzania is to attain true development, it should focus more on developing people’s welfare and mental capacities rather than material things.

Speaking during a public lecture organised by Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF) on Wednesday, local and international economists said development should also not be measured by gross domestic product (GDP) growth but rather by human development--improvement of their welfare.

Former World Bank (WB) economist and 2001 Nobel Prize Laureate Prof Joseph Stiglitz said governments should not measure development using GDP rather by levels of transformation in people’s lives.

“The GDP only measures market income, but when markets fail they do not reflect on social conditions. GDP might be growing but people’s income going down,” said the finance and economics professor at Columbia University, New York.

Another former WB senior economist Prof Kaushik Basu said during Arusha Declaration, Julius Nyerere vision was on improving social welfare. “The history of collaboration in the developing world has seen several key movements being created. They included the Bundung Conference of 1955, the Non-aligned Movement and to Tanzania, the Arusha Declaration of 1967,” he said.

Speaking during an official opening of the lecture on behalf of Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa, Finance and Planning minister Phillip Mpango explained that even as more wealth was now being exploited from natural resources, and the country’s political stability, still many Tanzanians remained deeply in poverty.“Tanzania is rich in natural resources. We have lakes, rivers, minerals, oil and gas as well as over 1,200 tourists’ attractions and peace and security but many people live in abject poverty,” he said.

He said the main challenges that have held many people into poverty despite all the resources include lack of technical know-how, lack of capital, corruption and poor marketing strategies.

ESRF board chairman and former chief secretary Philemon Luhanjo said the lecture was organised to generate a debate on how to improve Tanzania’s economic outlook.