In Search of a Link between Planning and Service Delivery: How can we Explicate Service Delivery Gap Using Primary Education and Agricultural Extension Services in Tanzania?

Abstract

Planning is a life blood of development. It creates a path through which initiatives can be translated into practice. This is possible if planning is made to be as integrative as possible to guarantee systematic coverage of all crucial aspects for attainment of articulated goals. It delineates key issues over which the tenets of different courses of action should be anchored. All the way through, Tanzania has been striving to adopt and execute an integrative planning process to attain its desired development. From 1960s through 1970s to early 1980s, Tanzania was found to be busy experimenting conventional planning process in all development circles. Nevertheless, conventional planning has been accused of being supply driven rather than demand driven. In reaction to this, from the early 21st century, Tanzania, like other developing countries, officially adopted a bottom up planning approach. Despite that deliberate intervention, the current practice still embraces top down model. This is so because the center still retains decision making powers and its priorities prevail over grassroots priorities. The objective of this article is to explain this failure of planning process which results to service delivery gap. In doing this, we compared the delivery of primary education in Moshi Municipal Council and that of agricultural extension services in Hai District Council.