Statement by Paul Wolfowitz on arrival in Tanzania

“It is a real pleasure to be here in Tanzania. I have long understood this to be one of the important developing countries in Africa because in the last ten years Tanzania has really made some impressive progress.  I guess you’ve tried a lot of different forms of economic development.  You are still experimenting but it seems to me that the experiments over  the last ten years suggest that this country is now on a very good track.  There has been steady growth now for a long time.  We see some of the results of that in some extraordinary improvements in the education area.

“I know that the number of students in secondary school has actually doubled in the last six  years. That is very good news for the future of this country. And enrollment in primary schools is now nearly one hundred percent. Those are things that will make a difference, not just for those children but for the whole country.

“You obviously have a lot of natural advantages: You have wonderful energetic people like we saw outside – of course many African countries have that, but you also have the advantage of many years of peace and stability and that’s not something to take for granted, it’s a huge asset; Wonderful climate.  I think you learnt some lessons from the past which were useful but not helpful. But I think, even though you start from the very low level, that Tanzania has come a long way and this aspiration to be a middle income developing country by 2025 is – it’s a dream but it’s a possible dream and if you keep on the track you have been on, it will come true and that will not only be good for the millions of Tanzanians but it will help to lead the rest of Africa. 

“So I am really delighted to be here.  We are going to talk about some of the problems also.  There have been a lot of improvements made in opening up opportunities for private business.  I think still much more needs to be done.  That is the key to creating jobs for everybody.  And obviously some efforts in the health area .  I know infrastructure is very much on your mind, especially electricity, I think but I feel if you can make the kind of progress that you’ve been making in the last ten years going into the future then, this country will be a quite wonderful place.

“It's good to be here.

“Thank you very much.”