Prime Minister and Mrs Sumaye, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Karibumi – velkommen

My wife and I are honoured and happy to welcome you and your delegation to this luncheon. The relations between our countries are close and go back a long way. Over the years we have had the pleasure of receiving a number of Tanzanian ministers here in Norway, and I remember with particular pleasure the visit of President Mkapa in 1998.

Tanzania and the Tanzanian people mean a lot to very many people in this country. This holds true not least for the Norwegian missionaries engaged in your country for many years. Tanzania has been one of Norway’s main development partners in Africa since 1966. Hundreds, and probably thousands of Norwegians have spent shorter or longer periods of their lives working in Tanzania since our partnership began. They have benefited from the friendliness and warmth of your people, from your rich culture and from the beauties of your land – the hilly and mountainous landscape of the northern areas where you come from, Prime Minister, and the south with its magnificent beaches. The openness, warmth and beauty of your country leave no one untouched. This certainly holds true for my Minister of International Development, Hilde Frafjord Johnson. After her happy childhood there, she regards Tanzania as her second home and she has often told me about her love for your country.

Not all of us have had the privilege of visiting Tanzania. But many have enjoyed your rich culture and your pulsating music, which has warmed and cheered us up here in the cold north. And, you would be surprised to learn how many Norwegian homes have Tanzanian makunde – your famous wooden sculptures.

Tanzania is a large country with an abundance of natural resources. You have fertile agricultural land and forests. You have the largest number of cattle in sub-Saharan Africa. You have gold and precious stones. Next year you will enter a new era in your development, when natural gas starts flowing through the pipeline from the gas field in Songo Songo to Dar es Salaam. From our own experience we know the importance of being a petroleum producer and also the importance of avoiding the pitfalls that this entails.

Indeed, many ofBut the challenges that Tanzania is still a poor country, and isfacing today are well known to us as well. The challenge of attracting foreign capital many of the same challenges as Norway did a hundred years ago, when it comes to findinginvestment and know-how in order to developing the skills to exploit your natural resources, is just one example.Twenty years ago, "transfer of technology" was the magic phrase that was thought to bring about development. Scores and scores of experts flocked to Africa with this in mind. But now one almost never hears the phrase.

Exploitation of natural resources requires bothNow we talk about competence and capacity building. Where before we sent you our Norwegian experts, we now offer training and competence building to your citizens. The Agricultural University outside Oslo and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim have hostedtrained many Tanzanians. They are today highly skilleda professionals, where they who hold key positions in their own fields and who are helping to train new generations of Tanzanians. I believe that investment in human resources is the most important investment any country can make, be it rich or poor. This principle also lies behind our substantial support to the primary education reform programme in Tanzania.

Other factors that are essential for development are democracy and good governance, a strong civil society, and a free press. I am glad to note the progress that Tanzania is making here. Norway is prepared to lend its support in these fields, since we feel that our experience and the solutions we have chosen may be of interest to you.. I am sure that not all the solutions we have found, or choices we have made, would be suitable for Tanzania, but we can share Many Norwegian NGOs have close partners in Tanzania and they are involved in a variety of projects. In addition to providing much needed assistance to many local communities, this type of co-operation helps to build a stronger civil society that can voice the concerns of the population as a whole.

Norway will also soon be embarking on a programme of training for journalists working in the Swahili-language media in Tanzania. Good journalism and well-informed media are a powerful means of bringing enlightenment and information to a wider public. We politicians may not always like what journalists write about us, but we fully recognise the role of the media as a watchdog.

In the development of the petroleum sector or any other sector of our societies, it is important not to rush into hasty decisions and to give due consideration to every aspect in order to obtain the best results. And here again we have the same challenges. This is reflected in your proverb: “Haraka haraka haina baraka”, or in Norwegian: “hastverk er lastverk”.

Your Excellency, the spread of HIV/AIDS has become a crisis of a global scale. Every effort must be made to fight this terrible illness that attacks the young disproportionately. My government stands fully behind the UN Millennium goal on HIV/AIDS. Fighting this illness is a priority in Norwegian development policy. I fully recognize the efforts made by you personally and by your government to put in place the necessary measures to reduce the spreading of HIV/AIDS in Tanzania.

Tanzania and Norway are both peace-loving nations. Your country’s recent history has been peaceful; indeed Tanzania stands out as an excellent example to many countries, including those in Sub-Saharan Africa. I know that the Tanzanian people take pride in this. You have every reason to be proud. I have heard that “amani” meaning peace, is a much used and highly valued word among the Tanzanians.[

Prime Minister, when visiting your part of Africa I have always been greeted with music. It is a pleasure to be able to reciprocate. Later during this luncheon we will listen to “a marriage” of Norwegian and African music. The musicians are Mocci Ryen, Ingrid Kindem and Mouctar Doumbouya.

My wife and I wish you and your wife as well as your delegation a wonderful stay in Norway. I am confident that your visit will further develop the close ties between our countries to the benefit of our peoples.

I would like to ask you all to join me in a toast to his Excellency, Mr Frederick Sumaye and Mrs Sumaye, and to the happiness and prosperity of the people of Tanzania.