Chairperson of the SADC-DFRC Board of Trustees;

DFIs Chairperson,

SADC-DFRC Executive Director;

Your Excellences Heads of Diplomatic Missions and International Organisations;

Board of Directors Chairpersons of Tanzanian DFIs–TIB, TADB & NDC;

Speakers from various countries;

Distinguished Participants;

Distinguished Guests;

Ladies and Gentlemen;

Good Morning.

At the outset, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Almighty God for having given us space and time to meeting here today. Many of our colleagues have travelled longer with the aim of positively participating in this important Annual Regional Event for SADC-DFIs network forum which has 37 members from 14 SADC countries. You are warmly welcome to Tanzania, particularly in our beauty city of Dar Es Salaam. My role in today’s event is to welcome Her Excellency, the Vice President of the United Republic of Tanzania, Hon. Samia Suluhu Hassan to formally open this annual forum being held in our country. But before inviting Her Excellency, I would like to say a few things to bring us all in perspective.

Honorable Vice President, SADC region member states gathered here today at their countries are increasingly facing universal challenges amidst the time the world is becoming richer and more globalized. As part of the globalized world, SADC member states in their own way are gradually facing global challenges that are setting a new context in the way countries view and manage financing of development projects in order to stimulate growth. The risks that are likely to have the greatest impact in the coming decade are climate change, fiscal crisis, economic disparity, global governance failures, storms and cyclones, geopolitical conflict, corruption, food insecurity, flooding and water security and commodity price volatility.

Honorable Vice President, in the midst of all these challenges, the world is facing deviations and shifts in the development finance setting that are creating new opportunities, particularly for developing countries, which include nations gathering here today, to access external finance for their national development priorities. These challenges correspondingly are creating new challenges and risks for managing development finance streams. Analyses of trends for finance stream, taking Tanzania as an example, reveal that there has been a decreasing influence of international sources of finance relative to domestic sources that has made aid flows as a percentage of Gross National Income decline; whereas Foreign Direct Investment flows continue to be more or less remained stable. This pattern visibly indicate that, dependency on aid as a source of development financing is declining, and more efforts are now been directed at mobilizing more domestic sources.  This needs to be done hand in hand with strategies to increase the capacity of tapping into investment resources from the private sector that if involved can play a great role in supporting governments to achieve their development endeavors.

Honorable Vice President, this Forum which you will soon open has 37 members who are aligned to share experiences and strategies that will support the capacities of the SADC Development Financial Institutions (SADC – DFIs) to deliver on their mandates towards the achievement of economic growth, create job opportunities and hence attain poverty alleviation.  The SADC-DFIs congregated here today are open to implement suggestions that will enhance the role of DFIs in the Region hence rationalize the existence of DFIs for benefit of the region.  The theme of this year’s Forum: “Towards Industrialization for Sustainable and Inclusive Development – The Role of DFIs in SADC”, augurs well with our national agenda of becoming a semi-industrialized country by the year 2020.

Honorable Vice President, without further do, on behalf of the host-institutions, TIB Development Bank, Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank and The National Development Corporation, which are the Tanzanian DFRC members, I would now like to invite you to talk to the audience gathered here as you deliver your opening speech for the year’s SADC-DFIs Network CEOs Forum.

Karibu sana Mheshimiwa Makamu wa Rais.