I wish to begin by thanking Your Excellency Ilham Aliyev, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the people of Azerbaijan for the warm welcome and hospitality extended to us. Allow me also to convey fraternal greetings from HermExcellency Dr. Samia Suluhu Hassan, the President of the United Republic of Tanzania, who could not attend this session due to pressing national commitments.
Even so, Her Excellency asked me to convey her best wishes to the Summit. Mr. Chairman The United Republic of Tanzania wishes to commend and thank you for the able manner in which you steered the NAM activities during the unprecedented circumstances brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Under your Chairmanship, we were able to articulate the importance of international solidarity and concerted efforts needed to defeat the pandemic. In addition, the Task force established under your leadership, did a commendable service to the NAM by establishing a database that is being used to-date by the WHO as a reference point for identifying our needs in addressing the pandemic.
Mr. Chairman It is evident that the pandemic has had serious adverse socio-economic impacts, including loss of lives, over-stretched health infrastructure and healthcare workers as well as subdued economic growth. Worse still, NAM Member States were exposed to inequitable distribution of essential vaccines and medical equipment necessary to fight the virus. In this regard, an important lesson for dealing with future pandemics is that a coordinated NAM voice calling for international solidarity is key to success.
Mr. Chairman, I wish to highlight a few key initiatives that we in Tanzania undertook in order to address the impacts of COVID-19:
- We mobilized and distributed vaccines to the targeted population which greatly helped to contain the pandemic. We are grateful for the voice of NAM that enabled us to receive the very much needed vaccines during those trying times.
- Simultaneously, we adjusted development spending in favour of construction and equipping health facilities as well as increasing personnel and supply of essential medicines in order to revamp the health sector which was seriously hit by the pandemic; and (ii) The Government devised and implemented a comprehensive COVID-19 Socioeconomic Response Plan, aiming at mitigating the effects of the pandemic, stimulate growth and preserve macroeconomic stability.
- Implementation of the plan was facilitated by a concessional loan under the Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) window from the IMF, to enhance infrastructure capacity in education, health and water to deal with contagious diseases and extending support to the most affected sectors including tourism, manufacturing, import/export business and SMEs.
Mr. Chairman, These measures were also supported by monetary policy interventions including reducing the Central Bank discount rate and the statutory minimum reserve requirement so as to provide additional liquidity to banks; introduced a waiver on interest and charges to businesses so that banks and financial institutions could roll over, review or extend overdraft facilities; reduced the interest rates on Treasury bills and bonds to increase liquidity of commercial banks; and containing inflation rate at single digit.
The government also successfully negotiated with bilateral and multilateral creditors for debt relief and restructuring.
This package of interventions has paid off. Real GDP which had fallen from 6.9% decadal growth the pre-covid to 4.9% in 2021, is now back at 5.1% in 2022. Tourism and manufacturing are also on the recovery path.
Mr. Chairman, As we embark on a complex and long journey to recovery, Tanzania wishes to call on the international community and Particularly NAM Member States to consider the following:
First, to continue to work together in solidarity to explore and promote international trade and investment, share best practices and promote economic cooperation.
Second, to promote research and development for home-grown solutions including biotechnology, manufacturing of vaccines, medical equipment, reagents and other life-saving commodities. The Pandemic has taught us that we can not afford to depend indefinitely on the charity of others.
And third, is for each one of us to strengthen our surveillance capacities to timely detect and prevent infectious diseases of public health concern.
This may include building infrastructure, robust health systems and training the work force for containment of outbreaks. Also, we need to promote proper nutrition and physical wellbeing of our people which are key to a healthy living and body resilience against diseases.
In this regard, Tanzania welcomes the establishment of the Financial Intermediary Fund (FIF) for pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response (PPR) under the G20 Indonesia’s Presidency, to address the current gaps in funding and to ensure the sustainability of its funding and WHO’s centrality in the governance framework.
Mr. Chairman, In conclusion, I reaffirm Tanzania’s faith in, and commitment to the Non-Aligned Movement. Tanzania will continue constructive engagement in the work of our Movement as we have done in the past 62 years. We call for deeper South-South cooperation and strengthened North-South relations on mutual respect basis, in the interest of our collective prosperity. We also continue to call for an end to the economic, commercial and financial sanctions imposed by the big powers on the Republic of Cuba and the Republic of Zimbabwe.
Lastly, as the Republic of Azerbaijan is passing the NAM baton to the Republic of Uganda, I wish to take this opportunity on behalf of Her Excellency President Samia, the Government and the people of the United Republic of Tanzania to wish our dear elder brother, His Excellency Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, the President of the Republic of Uganda, the Government and the People of Uganda the very best and assure you of Tanzania’s full support and cooperation as you discharge your new mandate
