Assessment of good governance and gender equality in the EU's budgetary support programme in Tanzania: Insights from agriculture sector

This chapter focuses on the incorporation of gender equality into the European Union's (EU) good governance promotion through the provision of development aid to the Tanzanian agricultural sector. Drawing on the literature on norm contestation in the EU, gendering EU studies and postcolonialism, this chapter presents three critical arguments. First, it criticises the EU's treatment of gender equality and good governance promotion as separate issues using separate instruments. We underline that gender equality is an essential component of good governance and the EU's budgetary support programme in Africa should integrate gender equality in order to promote good governance effectively. Secondly, we show that while the EU has provided over €600 million to support Tanzanian development including its flagship agriculture programme 'Agriconnect' as a critical sector for development, it failed to integrate gender-responsive budgeting in its projects. Most of the projects it funds were not targeted at gender equality. Thirdly, we argue that such a gender-blind nature of the EU strategy leads not only to the EU's failure to deliver its commitments to empower women farmers in Tanzania, but also in an environment of shrinking civic space and backsliding in gender equality, its continued funding amounts to supporting authoritarian tendencies in the country.