MVIWATA Board of Directors, Steering Committee of two MVIWATA middle level network of Mbeya Region and that of Iringa and Njombe, MVIWATA promoters and MVIWATA Staffs held a monitoring visit with a number of meetings with MVIWATA members in Southern Highland, Tanzania.
The two days meeting were held at Workers College Conference hall in Mbeya City of which different agendas including the Nafaka Project and its contribution to the growth of the institution, the implementation of activities by the steering committee in Mbeya and Songwe Region and the activities implemented by MVIWATA Promoters. After this two days meeting a visit was made to five Districts of Momba, Mbarali, Kyela, Chunya and Mbozi found in Mbeya and Songwe Regions. The aim was to monitor the progress of MVIWATA local networks members in particular districts together with the implementation of MVIWATA’s Strategic Goals.
Meanwhile the Board of Directors with MVIWATA Staffs made another visit to Njombe Region with the aim of monitoring MVIWATA activities in the area and conducting meetings with Steering Committee in Njombe and Iringa MVIWATA middle level network and also meetings with other local level networks members in villages.
The delegation paid a courtesy visit to Njombe District Offices and met with a District Administrative Officer and District Commissioner Ruth Msafiri whom along with other things a just and fair weigh measurement for smallholder farmer produces was critically discussed and strategic implementations were set together to end the exploitative nature of smallholder farmers by businessmen through unfair weigh measurement system.
After the discussion with DAS and a DC a team headed to Itunduma Village, Mtwango Ward in Njombe District to witness on how a Demonstration Warehouse for storing Irish potatoes seeds constructed by MVIWATA has helped smallholder farmers in the area. It was clear that the Demo warehouse has helped a number of smallholder farmers in the area with many villagers adopting the construction model of the warehouse in their houses to help store the irish potatoes seeds. Before the construction of this demonstration warehouse more than half of the irish potatoes seeds by smallholder farmers used to decay due to poor storage leading to spending a lot of money for smallholder farmers to purchase irish potatoes seeds for the next farming season.
A visit with meetings with local farmers’ network was as also made to Igagala Market constructed by MVIWATA in Wanging’ombe District in Njombe Region to see the status of the market and its benefit to members of MVIWATA and smallholder farmers in general in the area.
Conclusively, the monitoring visit in Southern Highland, Tanzania ended with a tremendous success by observing the status of MVIWATA members and their activities, the challenges facing them one being leadership and communication challenges of which the resolutions were made to resolve it. Also having observed the significance of monitoring visits, the team scheduled a plan for a visit of MVIWATA members and networks in other parts of Tanzania.
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