Tanzania"s precious minerals boom : issues in mining and marketing

The study comes at a time of sweeping changes in Tanzania"s mining sector as well as in the larger national economy. Tanzanian policymakers face a unique opportunity in the mining boom and must also prepare for its inevitable decline. The liberalization of mining has brought poverty alleviation to rural areas in the 1990s on a scale far surpassing the impact of donor-funded job- creation efforts. Working with that trend, future donor-funded efforts can multiply their impact. On the other hand, if this sudden growth is neglected or misunderstood, the benefits of sudden growth in mining could be transitory. The impact could be negative if future inflation and other economic distortions are not controlled; if arms and drug dealers or money launderers infiltrate the trade; or if greed, corruption, or ethnic tensions are allowed to build around resource riches. None of these negative situations is currently an imminent trend in Tanzania, but all have occurred in other mineral-rich countries. Includes bibliography. (Author abstract, modified)