Press Release

The Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB), in collaboration with the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MIT) through its Tanzania Kaizen Unit (TKU) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), organized and started a KAIZEN training program for the Bank in November 2020. At the beginning of the program, a sensitization seminar was held between 2nd to 4th November 2020, and 12 members of the Bank's top management participated in the seminar. The seminar was composed of classroom training and a site visit to two companies which practice KAIZEN, namely Open Sanit and Tanzania Brush Products Ltd.

Addressing the seminar, the Managing Director of TADB, Mr. Japhet Justine, emphasized on the importance and necessity of converting the Bank's immense human resources capital to form a financial base of the Bank. Based on this, he explained that the Bank is striving to improve productivity, reduce waste, and enhance general working environment across the Bank. He added that, in order to effectively achieve this objective, the Bank opted for a KAIZEN training program as the main tool for realizing the afore-mentioned motive.

After the adaption of KAIZEN, the Bank is expected to gain the following benefits; 1) skills and knowledge on KAIZEN will improve productivity and the quality of service provided by the Bank, and improve the general working environment. 2) The Bank will have opportunity to start KAIZEN consultation service for its clients which will, in turn, contribute to attracting more customers. Those who attended the program have already started identifying some areas of improvement in the Bank, and also outlined the areas which needed immediate action.

In the near future, the bank will have the opportunity of hosting other training programs such as training program for KAIZEN Trainers (KT) including Classroom Training (CRT) and On-the-Job Training (OJT) in pilot enterprises. The CRT is expected to take place a few weeks later to allow the participation of some more KT applicants and solicit for more pilot enterprises in addition to the Bank. Soliciting is being done by the College of Business Education (CBE) and the Small Industries Development Organization (SIDO). It is expected that the TADB will be one of the model examples which apply the KAIZEN approach in the banking sector in the African continent.

JICA will continue to support the Government of Tanzania and the Tanzanian industries through its technical cooperation to KAIZEN and Industrial Cluster Development activities across the whole country.

"KAIZEN" is originally a Japanese word meaning "Improvement", and a management philosophy and know-how for continuous quality and productivity improvement of concerned organizations. It is also a human-oriented approach fostering teamwork, mindset change, self-reliance, creativity, and ingenuity to come up with ideas for solutions to the problems faced in Tanzania.

Eng. Ramson Mwilangali, the Guest of Honor and the Director of Industrial Development, MIT (centered) posing for a group photo after introductory remarks. On his left is Mr. Japhet Justine, the TADB's Managing Director, with Mr. Kantaro Akutsu (left), Senior Representative of JICA Tanzania and Ms. Hiroko Makita. On his right is Mr. Richard Benaya and Ms. Jane Lyatuu from TKU and Ms. Mariam El-maamry from JICA. The seminar was held at TADB Headquarter in Dar es Salaam from 2nd to 4th November, 2020

• For further information, please contact:

JICA Tanzania Office, P.O. Box 9450, Dar es Salaam,
Tel: 022-211327/30 Fax: 022-2112976
Ms. Hiroko Makita Makita.Hiroko2@jica.go.jp
Ms. Mariam El Maamry Maamry-Mariam@jica.go.jp

• About JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency)

An incorporated administrative agency in charge of administering Japan's ODA (Official Development Assistance). It is one of the world's largest bilateral aid agency supporting socio-economic development in developing countries and in different regions of the world.

In Tanzania, JICA has been a long partner of Tanzania for more than 50 years in many sectors since 1962.