U.S. Position on the World Bank’s Investment in the “Southern Agricultural Growth 

Corridor of Tanzania Investment Project”

March 10, 2016

Agricultural development is key to long-term, sustainable growth for sub-Saharan Africa, 

accounting for one-third of the region’s gross domestic product and three-quarters of 

employment. Agriculture is also central to the World Bank’s poverty reduction mission and the 

achievement of many of the Sustainable Development Goals. Generally, growth in the 

agriculture sector is two to four times more effective in raising incomes among the poorest 

compared to other sectors. Agricultural growth also facilitates structural transformation of the 

economy by freeing up labor from farms and boosting employment in manufacturing and other 

industrial sectors. For these reasons, agriculture and food security are key development priorities 

for the United States. The United States welcomes the World Bank’s robust levels of investment 

in the sector globally.

In that context, Tanzania’s Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor (SAGCOT) Program is a 

promising initiative to attract greater investment into Tanzania’s agriculture sector and to link 

smallholder farmers to private markets. The United States is providing support to SAGCOT 

through the U.S. Agency for International Development. The World Bank’s proposed support of 

the Catalytic Trust Fund, the SAGCOT Centre, and the Tanzania Investment Centre is welldesigned in most respects, drawing from the World Bank’s previous experience with matching 

grants and support for smallholders. The United States appreciates the strong private sector 

focus of this project and the potential for this project to lead to future investments by the 

International Finance Corporation. This is exactly the type of World Bank Group cooperation in 

IDA countries that the United States would like to see more often. 

However, despite strong support for the objectives and focus of the project, the United States 

cannot support the request to waive the Indigenous People’s policy, and are concerned about the 

lack of quantitative water data for a project associated with large scale irrigation schemes in a 

zone with low seasonal water availability. 

Any waiver of an operational policy should be underpinned by a thorough and convincing 

justification that is well documented and evaluated in the project appraisal document, and subject 

to appropriate consultation. In addition, as the United States has noted throughout the ongoing 

safeguards review, any request for a waiver of the Indigenous Peoples policy (OP 4.10) should 

demonstrate how the World Bank and the borrower would provide affected communities with 

the same level of protection. 

In both of these areas this waiver request falls short. The justification for the waiver is limited to 

a few sentences in the project appraisal document that assert that application of OP4.10 is 

inconsistent with the Tanzanian constitution. The United States finds this argument 

unconvincing as Tanzania has previously applied OP4.10, including in the ongoing Productive 

Social Safety Net Project. OP4.10 does not confer special preferences to any groups, but rather

provides protection to groups that are among the most marginalized and vulnerable segments of 

the population.
It is also unclear that the Vulnerable Groups framework that is being proposed as an alternative 

to application of OP 4.10 will provide the same level of protection to indigenous communities in 

the project area. As one example, the framework sets a lower bar for which subprojects must be 

approved by the World Bank before they are eligible for financing. The United States is also 

concerned that there have not been public consultations on the framework prior to the Board’s 

consideration of this project. The failure to subject the project to public consultation prior to the 

Board’s consideration is inconsistent with the requirements of OP 4.10 and undermines a key 

principle of sustainable project design and planning.

The proposed expansion of irrigated agriculture in a basin already showing signs of water 

scarcity is likely to have significant direct, indirect, and cumulative negative impacts, including 

on critical and natural habitats downstream. However, the United States did not see a 

quantitative assessment of the water supply, further information regarding the associated storage 

dams referenced in the Strategic Regional Environmental and Social Assessment (SRESA), or 

downstream impacts. The United States understands that the SRESA was published in 2013 and 

there has been significant progress to analyze water use impacts by other SAGCOT donors, 

including USAID. However, this additional information on water use impacts was not provided 

to the Board. The United States encourages all future work in SAGCOT to take advantage of 

this new information.

For these reasons and the unfortunate precedent that this waiver could set for future application 

of OP4.10 or its successor under a new Environmental and Social Framework, the United States

wishes to be recorded as abstaining on this project. The United States requests that, in the future, 

should waivers be proposed to the Board, there should be: better consultation with the Board 

during the consideration and development of a waiver, a convincing justification of the waiver 

that is well documented and evaluated in the project appraisal document, and a clear 

demonstration that the project will provide the same level of protection to indigenous 

communities that is available under OP 4.10. The waiver process should be transparent, 

including consultation with the affected Indigenous Peoples. The evaluation of the validity of 

the country request and rationale provided to the Board should include views, at a minimum, 

from social scientists and the Indigenous Peoples themselves. 

Finally, the United States strongly recommends that the Catalytic Trust Fund employ the 

Analytical Framework for Land-Based Investments in African Agriculture as the standard 

against which matching grant proposals are evaluated. The Analytical Framework is the 

definitive framework for private investors looking to make responsible investments that comply 

with the Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and 

Forests in the Context of National Food Security and other environmental, social and governance 

commitments.