Personal Perspectives:Embodies Magufuli philosophy by Act locally but Think globally

By Eng.Gilay Shamika

The survival and wellbeing of the nation depends much on its human capital, especially their sincerity and liberty to engage themselves into day to day socio-economic deeds. The way people

discuss and argue sincerely and in a good faith for the nation interest, has a lot in the health of the nation. This reflects into the development of the family as well.

Of recently, I mean China, Malaysia, Korea and other Asian countries (the five tiger countries), have reached the development we see today by acting locally but thinking beyond their boarder. Mwalimu as well was concerned with strengthening our culture, projects and institutions within the country.

The culture of building self-esteem within the nation is what yields everything. The book authored by Dambisa Moyo titled ‘How the West was Lost’, in a nut shell tells the importance of the nation to believe and internalize its plans by developing its human capital.

The intuition of the people within the nation to invent new ideas and technologies serve the nation and help the livelihood of the whole community. This includes people in the private sector and those civil servants in the Government. Both sides have to walk the talk of each side at a point in time.

The survival of the nation is the continual struggle between the two parties, each part tries to win the other: Government implementing its programs in the favor of wananchi but, wananchi sometime resisting knowingly or unknowingly. Similarly, Wananchi require or instruct the Government to act in the manner they want, but the Government as well resist knowingly or unknowingly after getting advice from experts within the system.

Sometime ‘vicious’ struggle do happen because one side does not believe the intention of the other side. For the struggle to be smooth from either of the side, the need of encompassing team work and transparency is inevitable. In a broad note it means private-public partnership (PPPs) for all pertinent issues at a ground work. JPM has addressed this when he met investors and local businessmen/persons.

Since purpose is more powerful than need, the purpose of the Government mostly wins than need of the Wananchi which may be caused by emotions from previous events and used as precedence. The elaborations and participation from the grass root assist to avoid this and build trust of wananchi towards their Government’s purposes.

There is no doubt, the previous events in the ministries where JPM assumed the responsibilities, had built trust of many Wananchi and this directly sooth the struggle of wananchi towards the incumbent Government. The purpose of Government for this fifth term has been given green light at a glance by wananchi.

Knowing this, JPM want to fulfill the needs of wananchi by internalizing his purposes and resolute within the nation. His determination is to frame the nation with less dependence from foreign aids, empowering local investors, strengthening Government machinery in collecting all Government dues, fighting for corruption and impunity, improve good governance and rule of law.

Believing that, in this information age, all these have to be done as soon as possible to get time to implement and assess the outcome. To get things being done soon has also to be available soon. That means within the particular society itself and not otherwise. The rest can be done at a pace from abroad especially technology transfer and monetary exchanges, but ideas and human capital should be available locally to expedite the implementations. All these can be supplemented by trashing bureaucracy and redtape procedures and implement team work and transparency: Hapa Kazi tu suffices this!

Development model of Asian countries emulated by Tanzania in the program of Big Result Now, its philosophy and modality, logically is based on the aforementioned statements……act locally but think globally! After agreed on the model of brainstorming from within the society, Asian countries committed to start implementation from the grass root society; to offer microcredit to the ongoing indigenous projects and not the projects from above (proposed by WB, IMF, Bankers or other International Economists).

They opted to give people microcredit to do what they are doing and let themselves plan what they have been planning. This is the philosophy pioneered by Prof.Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank started in Bangladesh. By so doing, no any interference and external misalignment of their life and behavior.Morever, no education needed to run those projects and to find markets. Gradually as the business grows, everything adjusts by itself- and that is how it is in Asia now: Small industries at the family level with assistance from universities to improve the technologies. In Tanzania we have SIDO, VETA and other Government organs to serve the same purpose.

In Africa and Asia by then, we used to believe in ‘only’ foreign ideas/projects of which takes time to renaissance and in most cases not sustainable because they need ‘foreign follow up and foreign way of doing’. Is like copying and paste to the different template which doesn’t match the origin format. The ‘renaissance of African economy’ has to respect the internal projects and ideas.

Acting locally, strengthens the society and provides on spot hands-on skills and becomes the norms. In Asia and Korea, the community thinks about their local items and work as much as they can to compete within the society and globally! All these are engineered by the local professionals.

‘Ilituendelee tunahitaji taasisi imara na endelevu zenye Wataalamu wanao jiamini na wenye weledi usio na shaka pamoja na Vyama vya siasa sikivu kwa taasisi na Wataalamu husika na si kinyume chake.’ Hivi ndivyo walioendelea walifanya na wanaendelea kufanya’. Therefore let us have BIG RESULTS NOW by embracing our projects and ideas RESULTED NOW within the society and supplement with FDI. Internalizing development schemes makes it easy to accomplish within the time frame. The power of Asia came after acting locally while thinking globally in terms of expanding the market and technology. Europe and America as well, internalized their programs in a bid to strengthen their institutions, technology and the mindset of the citizens. It is the turn for African countries to internalize their programs from within the society and eventually partnering with the rest of the world.

Show me the country which has excels by just depending on FDI and I will show the ones which are poor because they don’t act locally and think globally. In a broad note, that is to say ‘Big results now can be attained if are resulted now from within the society.

Contact: gcshamika@yahoo.com