TANZANIANS CELEBRATE U.S. INDEPENDENCE DAY AT AMBASSADOR'S RESIDENCE

U.S. Ambassador Alfonso E. Lenhardt lauded the robust partnership between the United States and Tanzania before an audience of about 500 Tanzanian government, business and cultural leaders, members of the diplomatic corps and other guests at the June 30 reception at his residence in honor of the U.S. Independence Day. Highlighting the dynamic bilateral partnership between the U.S. and Tanzania which began fifty years ago with the establishment of the Peace Corps and U.S. Agency for International Development in Tanzania, the Ambassador said: "We are proud that the partnership between the United States and Tanzania has grown even stronger than Mwalimu Nyerere and President John F. Kennedy may have imagined. This is demonstrated by the growth and vibrancy of our U.S. Mission here in Dar, with activities ranging from combating malaria to building roads to teaching English. In everything that we are doing, we are also constantly looking for ways to empower and unleash the potential of the female half of the population; Tanzania will never be able to realize its full economic potential unless its women have the same access to credit, title to land, and educational opportunity as its men."

The Ambassador also noted that the recent visits by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, United States Trade Representative Ambassador Ron Kirk, Peace Corps Director Aaron Williams, Millennium Challenge Corporation CEO Daniel Yohannes, PEPFAR Administrator Ambassador Eric Goosby, and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Johnnie Carson, himself a former Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania, are examples of the United State's commitment to strengthen our partnership with Tanzania: "I want to emphasize that there is a reason why distinguished U.S. government leaders are lining up to come to Tanzania. It is because our two governments and our two peoples, Tanzanians and Americans working together, are doing the right things, and getting noticed at very high levels."

Underscoring America's commitment for expanding our partnership, the Ambassador announced Tanzania has been selected by the Obama administration as one of only four countries in the world to receive focused, high-level, strategic engagement to address binding constraints and unleash the country's full economic potential in a Partnership for Growth, adding: "the American people will be there supporting the Tanzanian people in ways large and small, with a firm hand on our golden past and a hopeful eye on the future."

The Government of Tanzania was represented at the Fourth of July celebration by the Honorable Samia Suluhu Hassan, Minister of State at the Vice President's Office of Union Affairs, who underscored in her speech the long-term ties of friendship and cooperation between both nations.