Andrew Mitchell – 2024 Speech at the Opening of the British High Commission Dodoma Office

The speech made by Andrew Mitchell, the Foreign Office Minister, on 5 April 2023.

Minister of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, Regional Commissioner of Dodoma, officials and honoured guests, mabibi na mbwana, ladies and gentlemen,

Hamjambo! Hello.

Nimefurahi kuwa hapa. I am delighted to be here.

It is an honour to open the UK’s newest overseas office. I’m on a bit of a roll here, a few days ago I was in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad, to open our first ever Embassy there.

It is a special privilege to be opening our High Commission in Dodoma in the month that your country celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Union.

Today is not simply a sign of the confidence and value we place in our partnership with your government. It is also an outcome of the warm and enduring ties between our people, nurtured through decades of cooperation and friendship at all levels.

Many notable Tanzanians have studied in the UK, from Julius Nyerere to Her Excellency President Samia Suluhu Hassan.

These illustrious names are joined by over 800 former Commonwealth scholars and 300 former Chevening scholars. We are so proud of these brilliant links between our 2 countries and the fabulous cooperation these scholarships have produced.

And as you are aware your excellences, the UK remains Tanzania’s second largest foreign investor, and one of our key bonds is our development partnership.

And we want to invest in it further, drawing renewed inspiration both from Tanzania’s development ambitions and our recently published white paper on international development – which I must urge you to read if you have not  done so. It is a compelling page turner that sets out the Britain’s plan for getting the SDGs back on track by 2030. And it is available on our website fcdo.gov.uk.

It was received very well by our partners. And we were so pleased when her excellence  President Samia agreed to provide a quote welcoming it. High praise indeed.

And as you take stock of the past 6 decades, you have much to be proud of. Whether it is the long period of peace and social cohesion, or the opening of your economy in the 1990s to drive economic growth, or the progress in improving access to healthcare and education, including the recent achievement of parity of enrolment for girls in primary school.

These are huge achievements all of us can take inspiration from.

On the regional and global stage, we welcome President Samia’s efforts to champion investment in Africa’s human capital and food systems; for her advocacy for gender equality and climate action is particularly commendable.

And we recognise the contributions Tanzania has made over the years to regional peacekeeping and the hosting of refugees, including in the eastern DRC.

I know that you face challenges in making further progress on the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly to reduce extreme poverty and to deliver growth.

I want to assure you that the UK is with you every step of the way as we clearly set out in our white paper. Our development roadmap prioritises mobilising more money from international financial institutions and increasing private sector investment in development.

It is worth noting that around world something like 90% of all jobs are created not by governments but by the private sector.

There are 3 things  we think we should focus on.

First, we must reform the international system to better serve your interests in terms of trade, tax, debt, and tackling money laundering and dirty money.

Second, we must work together to tackle global challenges, be it climate change, food insecurity or investing in education and health.

Finally, we must harness innovation and digital transformation, making the best use of  technologies, science and research.

We have already hit the ground running. Later today we hope to  have the honour of  signing  a UK-Tanzania Mutual Prosperity Partnership. Strengthening bilateral trade and investment, supporting better jobs and delivering more inclusive growth – I am very excited by what this partnership will enable us to achieve together.

Tackling climate change will be vital in delivering on this agenda. We support President Samia’s ambition to move Tanzania away from the damaging use of charcoal in cooking and to expand the use of renewable energy.

I am therefore delighted that the UK will be spending £5.5 million over the next 2 years on promoting clean cooking, clean energy access and urban resilience. Our programming will help bring clean cooking to 200 schools as well as thousands of households and assist several clean technology businesses to scale up their operations in Tanzania.

We have a responsibility, as we build prosperity, to ensuring opportunities for all to share in it. Something I know is very close to the heart of the Tanzania government.

Since 2015, the Britain  has invested over £112 million in building the social safety net for Tanzania’s poorest households. The UK will continue to partner with the Government of Tanzania in its efforts to lift the most vulnerable out of poverty and increase resilience to climate and economic shocks.

We will also work with the government in building a resilient health system, to reduce preventable deaths, respond to disease outbreaks and build the capacity for universal health coverage by 2030. To help drive forward this ambition, I am announcing today that the UK will invest £15 million in strengthening health systems in Tanzania including through a £10 million contribution to the multi-donor Health Basket Fund.

Tanzania is at a crossroads, undergoing a demographic transition. By ensuring women and girls have secure access to quality, affordable, and inclusive family planning services, we can accelerate progress on human capital outcomes as outlined in your Vision 2050.

And that is why I am also delighted to announce today that the UK will be extending its Scaling Up Family Planning programme, which has reached over 4 million women since 2017, by the sum of £12 million, to deliver lifesaving and transformative SRHR services to an additional 900,000 Tanzanians. This programme will help prevent 1,400 maternal deaths, 1 million unintended pregnancies, and 207,000 unsafe abortions.

These initiatives demonstrate  Britain’s commitment to our very close cooperation, partnership, and above all, our friendship. And after a period of very considerable budgetary pressure in Britain, I can announce too today that for the next financial year, which starts today, our bilateral programmes with Tanzania, the British and Tanzania development programme will more than triple this year from £17.6 million to £57 million.

So this office will be a little piece of the UK here in Dodoma, setting the stage for the next 60 years. As we work together to deliver for the people of our 2 great countries.

To those of you based in Dodoma, we will now be your jirani [neighbour]. Please do pop in for a cup of tea anytime.

Thank you for welcoming us to the neighbourhood. Asanteni sana.