Goin' to Arusha

No it's not a new song by the Mountain Goats, its the first leg of our upcoming vacation itinerary.

Last year the Economist named Tanzania "The country that deserves the money it gets" in an article entitled "Bye-Bye Poverty" which says in part:

Tanzania's relative lack of graft means that some donors now put their money directly into the national budget with few strings attached. Britain hopes to deposit $170m a year into Tanzania's coffers in this way for the next few years

While this may help dilute colonial guilt in Blighty (Tanzania was a British colony from 1919 till independence), I respectfully submit that government to government transfers will never bring about development.

Rather, I believe they will mainly bring about a long lived recipient government. And indeed, Tanzania has been a one party state since independence, namely the CCM party founded by Julius Nyerere, the leader of their independence movement.