For years western governments have sought reliable partners in parts of the developing world that hold strategic importance. In doing so, they often juggle various strategic imperatives: regional stability, economic opportunity, security interests, developmental promise, and the advancement of good domestic governance.
In Africa, this can be an especially challenging task. Relations with prospective partners on the continent are often undermined by domestic political and economic dysfunction, anti-western attitudes, or some combination of the two.
South Africa, for example, is firmly in the BRICS camp of a widening global fissure and holds a deep skepticism of western partnership. Countries like the DRC and Angola, while endowed with important resources, are plagued by weak state capacity and misgovernance. Some, like Nigeria, share pro-western attitudes but are hampered by ineffective policymaking. Other states, like Zimbabwe and Eritrea, are simply pariahs.
In short, governments that combine strictly non-ideological foreign policies with developmental competence, commercial openness and political reliability are frustratingly few and far between.
East Africa is an area where finding such partners is crucial. Historically the West has cultivated strong links with Kenya as its preferred partner, but the region’s growing importance demands more than just a single connecting strand.
Tanzania’s significance to the future of the region cannot be overstated. Energy diversification, rare earth metal supply chains, critical minerals, maritime security, counterterrorism, African development, and investment opportunities all coincide in East Africa’s second largest country.
Geographically, the country is invaluable. Its ports connect the raw materials of Africa’s interior to the manufacturing heartlands of Asia while its coast overlooks the flow of finished goods from Asia to Europe. In a neighborhood where China operates its first overseas military base in Djibouti and holds increasing influence over Mauritius, good relations with Tanzania become even more important. Although the UK and the United States operate military bases in Kenya, these are becoming increasingly unpopular with locals.
Tanzania is also a bulwark of regional stability. Unlike Kenya, Somalia, and Mozambique, the country remains free of insurgent terrorist groups. Ethiopia is at perpetual risk of a new civil war. Tanzania has a mixed Christian and Muslim population and has managed to build interreligious and ethnic harmony far more effectively than its neighbours. The country’s government is an indispensable partner in the fight against the Islamic State’s incursions into the Horn of Africa.
Tanzania’s strategic value is bolstered by its policy of diplomatic pragmatism and strategic neutrality. Last week, President Samia visited Russia, where she attended the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. This diplomacy should not be taken as any kind of ideological identification with Russia, but instead a reflection of the government’s longstanding traditions of sovereign non-alignment and the seriousness with which it pursues development through every means and relationship possible. In this case the Russo-Tanzanian relationship brings specific tangible benefits: grain supplies in the face of fertilizer disruption in the Gulf, and assistance in the development of a nuclear energy sector.
Tanzania’s energetic diplomatic efforts at building diverse relationships are always tied to identifiable material interests. This week, the country hosted President Tharman Shanmugaratnam of Singapore on a three-day state visit intended to deepen bilateral cooperation and commemorate 45 years of formal relations.
Singapore, another Indo-Pacific lynchpin, is a crucial partner for Tanzania’s ambitions. The city-state is already heavily involved in the country’s logistics, agriculture, and natural gas sectors. In all, 36 projects in Tanzania are currently backed by over US$500 million worth of Singaporean capital, creating some 3,200 jobs.
The Singaporean agribusiness giant Wilmar International is one major investor, owning two large subsidiaries which focus on the processing and export of rice and sesame seeds. Public health assistance has been another fruit of these ties. Singapore’s Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School continues to collaborate with Tanzania’s Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences on its national sickle cell disease programme, delivering meaningful reductions in infant mortality. The recent visit is intended to expand these links further, allowing Tanzania to learn from Singapore’s leadership in urban development and port management while accessing the entrepôt’s deep capital markets.
These engagements, however, are no denigration of its relationships with Western states. Tanzania needs Western finance, education, medical and scientific expertise, and state support to pursue its goals and positively shape the trajectory of the wider region.
Economically, the logic of partnership with Tanzania is even more compelling. The country’s current situation combines the right structural conditions and sound policymaking for a dramatic industrial transformation. Government debt is below 50% of GDP, inflation is at 4% and growth has remained steady at 4-5% each year. The nation’s economy is balanced and on the edge of new frontiers of considerable growth. It combines a mixture of fuel, mineral and agricultural commodities, service companies, industrial processing, and maritime logistics ideal for the next wave of global demand patterns. Upgrades to human capital, transport infrastructure and improving urbanism are set to only multiply these strengths.
Rarely does a country at this stage of development combine willing and competent leadership with such a large co-incidence of strategic interests. A closer partnership with Tanzania can advance the competing imperatives of Western foreign policies in Africa; its time policymakers took note.
