Ambassador Manuel Sager paid a courtesy call to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, East Africa Regional and International Cooperation Hon. Dr. Augustine Mahiga on February 23. The two sides discussed a range of bilateral development issues. The SDC Director General re-affirmed Switzerland’s commitment to support Tanzania’s development efforts within the Swiss Cooperation Strategy for Tanzania 2015-2018. Ambassador Sager was accompanied by H.E. Florence Tinguely Mattli, Swiss Ambassador to Tanzania; Mr. Siegfried Gerhard, SDC Regional Director; and Ms. Romana Tedeschi, Head of International Cooperation at the Swiss Embassy in Tanzania.

On February 23, Ambassador Sager met with non-state actors and representatives of the International Community at the Residence of the two Swiss Ambassadors, H.E. Florence Tinguely Mattli and H.E. Arthur Mattli. At this meeting, the Ambassador had a chance to interact and hear views on current challenges and opportunities for civil society and the media, and how the international community could support Tanzania in these fields.

Ambassador Manuel Sager met with SNV representatives on 23 February. SNV is an implementing partner for the Opportunities for Youth and Employment (OYE) project. The project aims to sustainably increase youth employment and income by developing skills and competencies through tailored technical, vocational and life skills trainings, apprenticeships and post-training support. During the visit to the SNV office, the Ambassador got an overview of SNV’s work in Tanzania, the OYE project and SDC’s support to the project. Achievements, challenges and lessons learnt of the project so far were also discussed.

Ambassador Sager visited Ifakara town on 24 February where he met with various partners and representatives from the Ifakara Cluster where a presentation of the Cluster was made. Ifakara shares a rich and long history of partnership and support with Switzerland. The Cluster consists of five institutions that aim at fostering collaboration in health research, training and clinical practice. The delegation later visited two among the five Cluster members, the Ifakara Health Institute (IHI) and St. Francis Referral Hospital (SFRH). Other Cluster members include the Tanzanian Training Centre for International Health (TTCIH), St. Francis University College of Health And Allied Sciences (SFUCHAS) and Edgar Maranta Nusring School (EMNS). 

At SFRH, Ambassador Sager inaugurated a newly expanded Outpatient Department (OPD). The expansion and renovation are part of ongoing efforts to rehabilitate and upgrade the hospital’s structures in order to improve quality of health care services to cater for approximately one million residents of Morogoro Region.

On February 25 the delegation visited APOPO, a social enterprise that researches, develops and implements detection rats technology for humanitarian purposes. Ambassador Sager visited the Tuberculosis (TB) detection lab and training centre to see how the rats can detect TB and learn about the different steps that are taken in training the rats to detect landmines and TB.