The Foundation for Civil Society (FCS) has managed to reach over 10 million people through various services offered by over 3,200 Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) supported by the Foundation for the last ten years.
FCS Executive Director, Mr John Ulanga
FCS Executive Director, Mr John Ulanga told the ‘Daily News’ at the weekend that the CSOs have done a good job over the past ten years where they interacted with the people and disseminated knowledge on various areas.
He mentioned the areas as access to legal aid and human rights, gender, disabilities, orphanage and vulnerable children, land ownership, HIV /AIDS, governance and accountability and public expenditure tracking system.
“Others are Social Accountability Monitoring System (SAMS) Deepening Democracy, Civil Society Capacity Development as well as Public Dialogues. There are many other areas that we have recorded some significant achievements but these are the leading ones,” he said.
He added that more than 42.5 million US Dollars (about 68bn/-) was disbursed to the CSOs during the period of implementing the projects in all 30 regions and 129 districts countrywide which he said was a wide outreach.
FCS marked 10th anniversary since it was established in 2003 but according to Mr Ulanga, still there is a lot be done to reach more members of the public as the country encounters a number of new challenges in its political, cultural and economic life.
He thanked the government and other Civil Society Organizations for their support during the entire period and called for the state to consider supporting it financially in the future since it now depends wholly on foreign donations.
He mentioned the partners supporting it as the UK Department for International Development (DFID), Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (EKN) and Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) among others.
However, Mr Ulanga said the Foundation was doing evaluation of the repayment of the grants disbursed to the projects implementing partners and that appropriate legal action will be instituted to defaulters.
“As we look back with pride, we do look forward with greatest resolve to contribute even further in changing the lives of people in these and other areas during the next ten years,” he said.
The Foundation was established to among others, empower the citizens to become a strong driving force for change in improving the democratic governance of Tanzania in fighting poverty and in achieving better quality of life for all.
By PIUS RUGONZIBWA, Tanzania Daily News
