Reasons for Tanzania to cooperate with other countries and regional groupings

There are several advantages of establishing cooperation with countries and regional groupings. The following are some of those advantages:

1. It improves cooperation in implementing decisions made by partner countries. For example, when the Apartheid government of South Africa refused to abolish the policy of racism, member states of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) ratified a decision to prohibit all South African planes to pass through their airspace. This was one of the sanctions to pressurise the South African apartheid government into stopping racism.

2. It strengthens the economy of partner countries through exchanging experts, trading together, and removing barriers in various sectors.

3. It resolves conflicts peacefully between countries or within a country. For example, Mwl. Julius Kambarage Nyerere and William Benjamin Mkapa were mediators in the Burundi internal conflicts.

4. It strengthens the defence and security of the partner states by coming up with joint strategies defend their borders as well as to protect resources such as wildlife, minerals, forest products, fishing and others.

5. It enables partner states to cooperate socially. This is noticed in events such as joint preparations for various sports. This kind of cooperation strengthens unity, peace, and good relations.

6. It provides aid and loans. For instance, Tanzania gets loans from the African Development Bank (AfDB) because she is a member of the African Union.

7. It enables partner countries to overcome challenges of society, including the fight against cultural traditions that violate human rights.

Some of these challenges are as follows:

1. Some of the citizens may imitate harmful foreign cultural practices.

2. It may endanger national security due to the interaction between administrative systems and the conduct of political activities and government business.

3. Citizens of one country may develop interests in the partner countries' working environments. This might decrease manpower in their home country.

4. There is a possibility of a country to lose resources when the cooperation ends. This may lead to permanent hostility and enmity.

5. Chaos may erupt among citizens of the partner countries. There can be several reasons for this; one of them being the feeling among the citizens of one country that their jobs are being taken by foreigners. For example, Xenophobic attacks have been happening in South Africa due to this reason.

In order for cooperation to last, several issues should be taken into consideration before and after its establishment. Table 4 shows important issues to consider before and after establishing cooperation between countries.

Before Cooperation	During Cooperation
Study the country with which you want to establish cooperation.	Implementation of the cooperation agreement by focusing on the agreed priorities.
Make sure it is not threatening the security of your citizens.	To assess and evaluate the cooperation to identify implementation challenges and devise strategies to address them.
Identify the advantages and challenges of the cooperation you seek to establish.	Maintain close communication between partner governments at the executive levels.
Prepare a formal agreement stipulating key areas of cooperation.	Understand the countries involved in signing the cooperation agreement.