Welcome to the CARE Quarterly Post, landing in your inbox on World Environment Day. As an organisation that builds climate resilient communities and ensures small-scale farmers increase agriculture productivity while sustainably managing natural resources, our work is intrinsically linked with the environment.

This years' World Environment Day theme - Connecting People to Nature - focuses on populations better connecting with the environment. For us, this theme also stresses the importance of supporting those whose livelihoods depend on nature, to be able to adapt to a rapidly changing climate.

In this edition, we're proud to introduce our new programmes, which build on best practice models to multiply the impact of our interventions to support women and rural communities that depend on the environment. Key partnerships are critical to achieving this, including our alliance with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), role within ACSAA, re-launch of the CSO Gender Forum and engagement with the Ministry of Agriculture on our Food and Nutrition Policy Review.

Finally, I would like to announce that my successor, Waleed Rauf, will be in post from 1 July. I am sure that he will enjoy meeting and working with partners, stakeholders, friends and the team as much as I have to advance gender equality and sustainable agriculture in Tanzania. We will reach out to you for formal introductions of Waleed.

With very best wishes,

Paul Daniels

CARE’S LEARNING HUB FOR FINANCIAL INCLUSION

In December, Tanzania was ranked the leading country in East Africa and sub-Saharan Africa for having an enabling environment for financial inclusion*. Coincidentally, the CARE office in Dar es Salaam has begun efforts to establish a Savings Led Financial Inclusion learning hub. The learning hub will be one of four based across CARE’s six Southern Africa country offices, each addressing priority learning themes. The other hubs, run out of Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia, will focus on Climate Resilient Agriculture, Gender, and Nutrition respectively.
 
The enabling environment for Financial Inclusion in Tanzania, program portfolio delivered by the CARE team in country and their associated research agendas, position the Tanzania Country Office as a strategic hub from which to disseminate learning.
 
The function of the Learning Hub will be multifaceted, including:

  • Establishing a portfolio of projects and identifying flagship Financial Inclusion projects for CARE across the region;
  • Design and delivery of innovative research projects;
  • Hosting of learning events and dissemination of learning papers and best practice models; and
  • Development of policy briefs and position papers for Governments and peer organizations.
An outward looking organization, the learning hub will not only be for CARE, but open to external organizations and regional partners working in the Financial Inclusion sector. We look forward to inviting you to be part of the learning hub.
 
* In The Economist Intelligence Unit's Global Microscope 2016 overall scores and rankings, Tanzania ranked 9th out of 55 countries in the world. The ranking was assessed using 12 indicators in determining global progress and challenges facing financial inclusion.