Our Work

Our programmes equip women and youth with skills and opportunities that enable them to run their small enterprises successfully and turn them into profitable commercial enterprises that impact the community and increase their household incomes.

 

Our interventions included the following:

  • Empowering vulnerable groups and SMEs with entrepreneurial skills and opportunities within various value chains and sectors. Specific activities include providing business development services support to growth oriented Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), promotion of SME clubs and associations, and operation of business incubation programmes for women.
  • Providing market based solutions to SMEs and farmers to benefit from the tourism value chain. Specific examples of this are the horticulture and the handcraft projects in Zanzibar.
  • Supporting Growth oriented SMEs with marketing strategies and technology linkages. This has been done through women entrepreneurship development activities like supporting packaging facility for food processors, facilitation of SMEs participation in international exhibitions and formation of technology and innovation clusters.
  • Project Management in Agricultural and Environmental Sectors. TGT operates and manages sector development projects that aim at providing market-based solutions through public-private partnerships to groups that accelerate the development of a thriving Tanzania Private Sector. The Focus is in value chain interventions focusing on the following sectors:
    • Cotton and textiles in mainland Tanzania: Improvement of cotton production and consumption in Tanzania through support to cotton farmers, establishment of university textile programmes and support to the Tanzania Cotton Board.
    • Forestry: Improvement of forest conservation and production through technologies that are environmentally friendly, socially acceptable, economically viable and culturally compatible so as to improve the living standards of rural families in Tanzania.
    • Horticulture Development: Changing the lives of smallholder farmers through integrated horticulture farming and value addition to enable them to benefit from the Tourism Value Chain in Zanzibar.
  • Rural and Peri-urban financial deepening which has included operation of wholesale and retail credit schemes, the creation of Fanikiwa Microfinance Company Ltd, facilitation, formation and capacity building of community banks and investing in community banks and community banks association.
  • Provision of incubators and low cost housing, specifically the establishment of a technology incubator through the College of Engineering Technology (CoET) at the University of Dar es Salaam and the development of prototype low cost housing in Zanzibar.
  • Financing the improvement of SMEs Workspaces which ensured that SMEs had adequate premises in which to operate, e.g. establishment of business premises for our beneficiaries such as Marvellous Flotea Company and establishment of SME Workshops in Mikindani, Mtwara.

Programmes – we take a holistic approach to enable SMEs and farmers in Tanzania to become more profitable. We believe that to grow their businesses, entrepreneurs and farmers need a combination of the appropriate skills, resources and ability.

Gender Focus – Many of the programmes target women specifically; and in all programmes, gender awareness and sensitization workshops are a vital part of our approach to development. We believe that business development and women’s rights training work to increase standards of living and improve welfare – both independently of each other, and in a self-reinforcing virtuous cycle.

Skills – Good technical skills are required for efficient and high-quality production, as well as skills to standardize, brand and market their produce; organizational skills in finance, management, leadership, and business registration and formalization are needed to ensure organizations run efficiently and effectively.

Resources – Access to finance, work premises and good-quality resources are necessary to enable efficient and scale-able production; and access to more and higher-value markets enables entrepreneurs and farmers to increase production quantity, quality and range.

Ability – Self-belief and commitment to goals enables entrepreneurs and farmers to achieve the direction they need to grow their businesses; and gender-based personal, social and economic obstacles must often be removed before female entrepreneurs and farmers can achieve their full potential. Each of our programmes approach this challenge in a holistic manner, analysing what is most important for the entrepreneurs and farmers that we work with.