The Norway-Tanzania partnership initiative

On 29 November 2007, Norway and the United Republic of Tanzania signed a bilateral agreement to support Tanzania’s efforts to reduce child mortality and maternal mortality. The modality for support is to channel funds through a common financing basket for the health sector, together with a number of bilateral and multilateral partners, with no earmarking of the Norwegian funds. This marks the end of a one-year planning process, whereby we have attempted to bridge one of the major divides in the current development practices—namely, between global initiatives mobilizing additional finances for specific themes (in this case, the reduction of child and maternal mortality) and country- led processes of harmonizing and streamlining donor financing— by incorporating assistance into the development budgets, preferably in the form of general, alternatively sectorial, budget support.