AllanBlackia nuts
AllanBlackia nuts grow in the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania. The Novella partnership is a corporate public private partnership that was established in 2002 by Unilever, World Agro forest Centre (ICRAF), International Conservation Union (IUCN) and SNV. In Tanzania, the local partners include Tanzania Forest Research Institute, Amani Nature Reserve, Tanzania Forest Conservation Group as the domestication team, which receives backstopping support from ICRAF’s regional office in Nairobi.

The local NGOs in the partnership are Faida Mali, Institute of Cultural Affairs Tanzania and INADES Formation Tanzania, who offer capacity building to producers groups / collectors of AllanBlackia nuts in terms of Organizational Development and Institutional Development of producers and collectors.

SNV’s brokerage role within the partnership has enabled about 6,000 AllanBlackia farmers to a local supply company Novel Development Tanzania Limited. AllanBlackia nuts oil has been approved as food additive in the EU and thus more private players are expected to enter in the business of AllanBlackia. This ending season the partnership worked with a total of 6,548 (3,675 male and 2,873 females) farmers against the target of 6,000 from previous seasons.

In the same 2008 season, AllanBlackia nut collection reached 435.5 metric tons against a target of 400 metric tons. A total of 318 metric tons of nuts have been processed into oil (80 tons) about 4 tanks of oil and exported to the Netherlands. A total of 7 tanks (140 metric tons of oil) are expected to be exported this season. The Novella Tanzania partnership intends to move to a new area around mount Uluguru in 2009 meaning more farmers participating in the project. With progressive price increase since the inception of the project this, season farmers earned a total of Tshs.108 mil (about US $ 93,103) as an additional income while the private sector (crusher and transporters) earned a total of Tshs.70 mil ( about Us$ 60,344). 

Governance
SNV Tanzania’s efforts concentrated on a programme supported by Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands for Capacity Building of Local Governance Actors which will be phased out in 2008. As a result of this intervention, a total amount of $ 4.5 million became available to 13 districts in the fiscal year 2007/2008 for the provision of basic services. The Capacity Building of Local Governance Actors programme has provided an excellent foundation for local government actors to deliver high quality services from 2008 onwards.

Tourism
In Tanzania, the “Pangani Saadani project”, was approved by the World Tourism Organisation (WTO), as a programme for Sustainable Tourism to Eradicate Poverty (ST-EP) and partial funding of $ 77,500 was received in February 2007. SNV facilitates the Tanzania Tourist Board and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism to implement the WTO ST-EP initiative. SNV entered into a partnership with the Hotels Association of Tanzania to explore the ‘economic embeddedness of hotels in the local economy’ and improve the income and employment from tourism for Tanzanians. Together with students from the Erasmus University an initial assessment amongst the major hotels in Dar es Salaam and Arusha was undertaken. This assessment clearly indicates areas for action in 2008.