Tanzania - Resilient Natural Resource Management for Tourism and Growth Project

Overview & Synopsis

Ratings of the Tanzania: Resilient Natural Resource Management for Tourism and Growth for United Republic of Tanzania were as follows: outcome was unsatisfactory, Bank performance was unsatisfactory, and M&E quality was modest. Lessons and recommendations were: for operations that support protected area (PA) management, especially enforcement, proactively identify, assess, and mitigate security risks during preparation and implementation through thorough institutional assessments of law enforcement mandates, codes of conduct, use-of-force protocols, and community liaison capacity, and put in place incident monitoring and reporting systems; establish robust, inclusive, and well-scoped Process Frameworks (PF) to regulate access to restricted natural resource areas, ensuring early and continuous engagement of affected stakeholders, clear rules for access and adaptive zoning, facilitated dialogue and mediation mechanisms, and strong grievance redress mechanisms (GRM) and monitoring; define project areas clearly, assess sensitive or unresolved legacy issues such as boundary changes and land or water disputes, and allocate sufficient supervision resources and instruments to cover both direct and indirect impact zones, including systematic monitoring of boundary changes and media or third-party reports; carefully sequence community livelihood support and benefit-sharing measures ahead of or alongside strengthened PA enforcement to build trust, reduce human-wildlife conflict, and foster local support for conservation and tourism; scale and replicate the Community Conservation Bank (COCOBA) microfinance model, paired with targeted skills development in tourism, hospitality, and environmental conservation, to enable conservation-friendly livelihoods and strengthen community-park relations; and when accountability processes are initiated, use them promptly as an opportunity to revisit risks and implementation approaches, acknowledge weaknesses early, and act on corrective measures, such as those later reflected in the Management Action Plan (MAP), to address livelihood challenges linked to restrictions on access to park resources.