Joint Assistance Strategy for Tanzania (JAST)

In an ever-changing aid environment, the international development community is challenged to better define distinctive roles and comparative advantages in order to move forward, and to remain a relevant and trusted partner in countries that they operate. The Paris Declaration (2005) clearly articulates the need for a close development cooperation and call upon development partners to support government through nationally-led economic and development strategies.

The DPG in Tanzania support the Government’s efforts to deliver on the goals and targets of the MKUKUTA and the MKUZA, using the JAST’s guiding principles.

The JAST is the national medium-term framework for managing cooperation between the government of Tanzania and development partners at a country level. It is aimed at deepening the impact of the relationship between the government of Tanzania and its development partners by strengthening national ownership of the development process, and harmonising processes and procedures in ways that make aid more effective and simpler to manage. It aims to facilitate effective development partnership outcomes based on mutual trust and respect, frank and open dialogue and mutual accountability under a single partnership framework.

The conceptual foundation of the JAST is guided by the accumulated experience and lessons learned from the Tanzania Assistance Strategy (TAS) which served as medium-term framework to deepen the national ownership and Government leadership of the development process. The founding principles of JAST are also in line with the principles of the Monetary Consensus on Financing for Development (2002), the Rome Declaration on Aid Harmonisation (2003), the Marrakech Memorandum Managing for Results (2204) and the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005).

Given the high increase in new emerging development and global initiatives on aid effectives, the JAST highlights the need to for all aid assistance to be integrated into the Government budget and Exchequer system. The JAST also promotes the ‘division of labour’ in order to achieve optimal allocation of responsibilities and tasks both within the Government and Development Partners based on the comparative advantage. Since the official signing in December 2006, JAST process has attracted significant resources in support of various programmes and the impact has been felt across key sectors such as health, agriculture and education.