In order to contribute to the government’s efforts towards socio-economic development out of the oil and gas sectors, STIPRO organized a seminar on the development of local content in these sectors about four months ago. The presentations stimulated interesting debates and consequently, participants expressed the need to keep on discussing issues regarding local content development not only in the gas and oil sectors, but to also to look at other sectors with substantial participation of foreign direct investments in the county.

STIPRO is currently organizing a round-table discussion titled “Local content development in the Tanzanian Agriculture and Mining Sectors: Status and Opportunities”, which will be held on Thursday, the 20th July 2017 at the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH), Kijitonyama, Dar es Salaam. Representatives from the government, private sector, academia and civil society organizations have been invited to attend. The round-table is targeted at providing a platform for discussing the status, strategies and outcomes of local content development in the two sectors with the intention, among others, to establish the basic pre-conditions or requirements for ensuring effective local participation in all foreign investments in the sectors of agriculture and mining. In particular, the round-table will address the following questions:

a) What is the extent of local content participation in the agriculture and mining sectors?

b) What are the local strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for engagement with FDIs in the sectors of agriculture and mining?

c) To what extent are the potential local participants technologically and knowledge-wise empowered?

d) What are the conditions, instruments and approaches necessary to ensure local content participation in the sectors of agriculture and mining?

It is expected that the round-table discussions will lead to increased awareness on the need of outlining preliminary strategies for designing the local content for the two sectors.