EfD Tanzania is one among 12 centers hosted by universities or academic institutions in Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Vietnam. The EfD Tanzania is hosted in the Department of Economics at the University of Dar es Salaam, the oldest university in the country. The Department of Economics is one of the leading economics departments in the region. It offers Undergraduate, Masters, and PhD specialization courses in environment and economics. These are analogous to the collaborative courses under the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) programs in joint electives facilities.
The main goal of EfD Tanzania is to support poverty alleviation and sustainable development through increased use of environmental economics capacity in policy making processes. Specific objectives include:
(i) Increasing the number of trained environmental economists by creating auspicious working environment for environmental Economists. This is achieved through, among other things, providing research support for local MA economics and PhD candidates writing on environmental and poverty.
(ii) Strengthen the capacity of environmental economics and economics graduates to do applied research on poverty and environmental management.
(iii) Increasing environmental awareness among policy makers and creating better understanding of environmental realities.
(iv) Organizing workshops, conferences, and internal seminars.
(v) Distribute research publications and policy briefs, build capacity of civil servants and other stakeholders on environmental and development issues with the objective of increasing awareness of the link between environment management and poverty reduction.
EfD Tanzania vision is to be the leading center for environmental economics and a locus for interactions among researchers, civil servants and policy maker interested in policy oriented environmental research in Tanzania.
The mission is to conduct a high profile research and to provide quality policy advice to the government and other stake holders based on quality objective research and to engage in capacity building to reduce poverty and contribute to sustainability. Members of the center are building links with government departments and agencies responsible for environmental management and poverty issues.