Project News

2019 concluded with a feeling full of joy; national guidelines and manuals for improved O&OD^[1] had been completed and approved after a process beset with many hardships since July 2018.

It was back in November 2018 when the Joint Coordination Committee decided on the Dissemination of Improved O&OD, set to start in 2019. From then, the availability of National Guidelines and Manuals for Improved O&OD came to be an urgent issue.

At JCC to agree on 2 year scenario by March 2021 and dissemination. Permanent Secretary of PO-RALG and JICA Headquarters member. (Dodoma, November 2018)

Throughout the process of completing and approving the O&OD Manual/Guidelines, official retreats, internal meetings, stakeholder meetings and management meetings for preparation of the Guidelines were continuously held on 36 occasions until September 2019. All those efforts were made with tremendous commitment by PO-RALG.

The more the O&OD team involved officers in the process of guideline building, the more the team received comments for further improvement. Building the structure itself took several months to agree on, and the O&OD team and other departments within PO-RALG sat together on many occasions to have common understanding of the essence of these guidelines. The project then stormed into the period of individual brainstorming followed by idea sharing at retreat.

Retreat on proofreading among PO-RALG officers (Morogoro, June 2019)

Time was not quite readily available for all actors to sit together and discuss the subject due to the division of various departments and institutions involved in the process of documentation.

On 21st October 2019, after wide revision based on comments from Director of Local Government and Permanent Secretary of PO-RALG, the whole process was settled with final approval from the director.

The completion of the Guidelines have given the Project a fresh start for preparation of workshops, aiming to officially introduce the Improved O&OD nationwide and nurture understanding of LGA officers.

At JCC to agree to conduct Dissemination Workshops for all LGAs. (Dodoma, July 2019)

It is expected that these user-driven Guidelines and Manuals will be well explained to 185 LGAs and 26 Regional Secretariats at the coming Dissemination Workshops nationwide from January to June 2020. These workshops will allow officers to internalize the essence of the Improved O&OD system, as well as give some room to come up with the effective way to embed this methodology into existing Tanzanian administrative system.

The Project team continues to commit to further cooperation with PO-RALG, in order to realize a collaborative local development system.

Guidelines, Manual for Planning and Implementation, Manual for Community Facilitation are all set and approved. Photo is Swahili version (Dodoma, October 2019)

At print agency to check the progress and quality of all documents. (Dar Es Salaam, December 2019)