Regulatory Impact Assessment in Tanzania: The Current Practice and Challenges

Abstract

Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) systematically assesses the costs and benefits of proposed and existing regulations. Effective RIA implementation leads to the attainment transparency, accountability, proportionality and consistency which are principles of good governance. Previous surveys on the adoption and practice of RIA in developing countries that included Tanzania showed that these countries fall short of proper implementation of RIA. However, these studies were not in-depth as they focused on a number of countries which vary in economic and political development.  Nevertheless, these surveys did not validate their findings with information from the regulated and ordinary citizens. Using both questionnaire and interviews this study therefore gives specific attention to the current practice and challenges of RIA. This study is more enriched as it attempted to gather information from both officials from regulatory agencies, the regulated and representatives of citizens. The study also attempted to fill the knowledge gap given the time lapse between the previous and current study. Findings indicated that compared to previous reports, the practice of RIA has improved but has not reached its full potential. With regards to challenges, the study showed that Tanzania is largely facing similar challenges since the first adoption of RIA over two decades ago. Overall, there is general positive improvement on the use of RIA particularly on regulations that affect the business sector. This study is part of my PhD dissertation to be submitted to the University of Dar es Salaam.