The organization is the National federation of all 4 sugar cane farmers associations in Tanzania, totaling some 14,500 individual members. The organisation mainly lobbies government and the millers on the various issues affecting cane growers, aiming to establish a better enabling environment for sugarcane growers in Tanzania. The organization normally runs on a basic budget mainly contributed by the individual members. Funding from this project will allow TASGA to become more effective. Main activities will cover - capacity building (staff and office) - improvement of communication capacity of TASGA - promotion of block farming and irrigation schemes - networking with stakeholders and representation of member Associations - leadership capacity building - L&A on different sectoral concerns. The project is a follow-up of a previous project with AgriCord (ending Sept08), which included a strategic planning exercise laying the basis for this continued support to TASGA, and also for specific support to its member associations. The latter will be submitted as a separate project starting January 2009.

The organisation is a federation of 3 sugar cane farmers associations, established in 2000, representing 83 groups and 10,500 individual members. The organisation lobbies the government on the various issues affecting cane growers. TASGA is very well entrenched and trusted by the all stakeholders in the sugar sector of Tanzania and is thus in a very good position to realise its primary objective, i.e. to lobby and advocate for a better enabling environment for sugarcane growers in Tanzania. Tasga is running on a basic budget of +- 70,000 Euro/year which is entirely funded from contributions by the individual members. Funding from this project will allow TASGA to become more performant: - Staff and equipment is added to allow them to cope better with TASGA's many tasks. - the communication capacity of TASGA will be improved - the needs of the different member organisations will be assessed in order to allow TASGA in a next phase to design programs and source funding and services. This info will also be used in a strategic planning exercise for TASGA - one specific program already been carried out is the transformation into Block Farming. An exchange visit is planned to increase knowledge in this field - a new member to TASGA is being established (Kagera Sugarcane Growers Association). TASGA does follow-up on this process and will ensure a firm basis for this new association. - a leadership capacity building programme will be designed and implemented covering all structural levels of TASG (TASGA-Associations-Groups). - more intensive lobbying will be done on different sectoral concerns