What approach did the Bank take moving forward with the Tanzanian government?
A. The Bank focused on ensuring that programs were closely aligned to Tanzania’s priorities. We supported the Tanzania revenue authority, which the government set up to address the fiscal problem, we moved on privatization of the state-owned commercial banks and we supported government efforts to improve budget discipline and resource allocation. We worked very closely with the government team and the IMF in the design of the reform program. But I think we always made sure that we respected the government’s leadership role in that. And finally we worked very closely on HIPC (debt relief). I think the government felt moving forward with HIPC validated the results from their policy changes as the HIPC funds largely supported education and health programs that the government had endorsed and pushed. Q: One of the things that is no longer in the new policy is the more prescriptive approach toward adjustment operations. How big a step is that? A: That’s a step we’ve had broad support for. I
