Tanzania NGO Sector

This article was originally developed from an article prepared for the NGO Handbook by Justin J. Nuttall titled, "Historical background of the Tanzanian NGO sector and Tanzanian NGOs."

The essay to follow is intended to be a (relatively) succinct, yet thorough, history of the non-governmental sector in the United Republic of Tanzania, tracing that history back to the mid-nineteenth century, and following its lineage to the twenty-first century. It examines in detail numerous facets of the Tanzanian non-governmental sector, including the provision of education and health-care, which were, practically speaking, the subject of the first non-governmental organizations in the country (indeed, having been provided before Tanzania was even a country), and the cooperative movement.

Throughout the essay, statistics are used whenever possible, to illuminate the facts being presented, and to provide a fuller picture of the sector on the whole. However, a caveat: Statistics regarding the same subject often vary, sometimes wildly so, from source to source and, in some cases, one set of statistics has been chosen over others. Some inconsistency in the presentation of figures concerning, for example, the number of non-governmental organization operating in any given year, seemed inevitable, due to uncontrollable factors, such as unregistered organizations, etc. But great efforts have been made to ensure a reasonably high level of acuity, and all figures are accounted for via their sources.

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