Tanzania-Brazil: The Living Colors of Diplomacy.
Exclusive Interview with Mais Afrika, by Ambassador Adelardus Lubango Kilangi, representative of Tanzania, in Brazil and South America.
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In this engaging interview, we delved into the trajectory and vision of Ambassador Adelardus Lubango Kilangi, representative of Tanzania, in Brazil and South America.
In this seventeenth Great Interview, we gained a unique insight into diplomatic work and the multifaceted figure of this respectable Ambassador who shared his rich personal experience, from college to the corridors of diplomacy.
By exploring his career and personal perspectives, we uncover initiatives, challenges and opportunities that shape bilateral relations between Tanzania and Brazil today.
This enlightening dialogue transcends his rich trajectory, providing valuable insight into how his legal and diplomatic experiences shape relations between the two countries, emphasizing the importance of law as a foundation in building bridges between nations.
Through this in-depth conversation, we will explore not only his notable initiatives, but also his views on global cooperation, including the joint approach to the Sustainable Development Goals.
Get ready for an enriching exploration led by an excellent diplomat and great conversationalist, whose vision transcends borders and whose work promotes a solid and sustainable partnership between Tanzania and Brazil.
Join us in this fascinating conversation and find out what you don't expect...
The interview
More Afrika: Mr. Ambassador, before we begin, I would like to thank you for your availability to grant us this interview. But before we start, could you introduce yourself, telling us a little about who you are and sharing some details about your professional career leading up to your current position as ambassador of Tanzania in Brazil and South America?
Adelardus Kilangi: Thank you very much. My name is Adelardus Lubango Kilangi and I am the ambassador of the United Republic of Tanzania in Brazil and throughout the South American region. I enjoy the title of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary. As for my career and professional training, I can divide it into four areas.
At first, I was in academia. I taught law at university and carried out various academic activities for around 15 to 20 years. I also work in the legal field, I trained in law and became a lawyer at the Supreme Court of Tanzania. My immediate position before being appointed ambassador was Attorney General of the United Republic of Tanzania.
I performed some advisory roles and held some positions in the legal area. I also worked in international organizations and institutions, namely at the African Union, where I was president of the International Commission of the African Union and worked at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa as a senior advisor on mine law at the African Center for Mining Sector Development.
The third area that I consider part of my career and professional training is Civil Society. I worked in several Civil Society organizations, where I was involved in project management and various programs in Tanzania.
Now, I'm in diplomacy, but I had the opportunity, a while ago, in Tanzania, to work in another country, at the Danish Embassy in Tanzania, where I worked as a program advisor. I would also add that I worked with international organizations, as I mentioned earlier. I think I built my diplomatic base in this area and now I am an Ambassador.
(BAD): Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador. As a lawyer at the Supreme Court of Tanzania and a member of many legal institutions, including the Tanganyika Law Society and the East African Law Society, how do you think this experience in the legal field has influenced your diplomatic approach and promotion of Tanzanian interests? in Brazil and South America?
(AK): Definitely. We are always told that our academic and professional history will always accompany us in whatever activity we are carrying out at that moment.
But let me start by saying that when we talk about Tanzania's interests in Brazil and South America, first and foremost is to strengthen the bilateral relations that we have between Tanzania and this country, as well as other countries in the South American region.
We also deal with consular services, we provide consular services, mainly for Tanzanians who live in this region and in this country, and in this region, but also services for people from this region who want to visit Tanzania. However, perhaps of greater importance is the issue of diplomatic relations and economic diplomacy.
This is a relatively new term, but we are talking about corporations using diplomacy to foster cooperation in the areas of trade and investment. When you mention all these things, in my opinion, it always comes down to the question of the law. If we talk about bilateral relations, they have to be formalized through law.
If we talk about consular issues, we will have to invoke the law at some point. If we talk about trade and investment, much of it involves the use of law, signing memorandums of understanding, contracts, bilateral investment treaties and the like. At the end of the day, we cannot escape the law.
The law will always be present and with my training in law and in all the areas I have worked in, I think it gives me a lot of support as I deal with these roles in the diplomatic field. Generally, when we talk about international relations, it is a rules-based order and once again, we cannot escape the law. The law is very useful in my work as a diplomat.
(BAD): Mr. Ambassador, you held the position of chairman of the African Union Commission on international law and emphasized that law is the basis of everything. How have his experiences in regional and international organizations contributed to his perspective on global and regional cooperation?
(AK): Thank you very much. Perhaps I need to briefly describe what we were doing at the African Union Commission on international law. Our main task was to develop international law in Africa and advance new and emerging areas in the field of international law where rules and principles had not yet been sufficiently developed. That was our main job.
But I must admit and say that, in carrying out our work, I came across a lot of experience and understood many issues, better understanding the world situation and realities from a more privileged point of view.
One thing I understand very well is that the world has been, and will continue to be, a polarized stage, where there are different points of view on different subjects, where there are different interests on different issues.
The conduct of affairs, in my opinion, is always guided by interests and when I talk about being guided by interests, I do not necessarily invoke this concept in a negative way, but it can be invoked in a very positive way.
The world, without interest, would be a very boring place, so the global agenda and issues are driven by interest. But what is important in this context of global issues driven by interests, issues, activities, interactions, is that you clearly define your own interest — what is your interest?
So, as developing countries, what is our interest or interests, as Tanzania, what is our interest or interests, as Brazil and the same for many other countries?
What are our interests? And once we define those interests, then let's think about actually joining forces with like-minded people and countries and see how we can promote and develop those interests.
(BAD): Mr. Kilangi, as ambassador, has the responsibility of strengthening bilateral ties between Tanzania and Brazil, promoting both trade and cultural exchange. Could you share some notable initiatives implemented during your time in office to improve this cooperation?
(AK): Thank you very much for the question. You are asking me about the basis of my presence in Brazil and the South American region in general. I've been in Brazil for about a year and a half, precisely 20 months.
As I said before, our main functions are perhaps three: fostering bilateral relations, that's one, and then working on consular issues, that's two. But three and where we are focusing a lot these days is the work of economic diplomacy.
This means investing, investigating opportunities, creating a strategy, developing plans on these opportunities where we can promote trade and investment between these two countries. This is where the basis of the concept of economic diplomacy lies.
Now, since arriving in Brazil, I have taken several initiatives. First of all, explore, because everything starts with exploration and after exploration, then you define yourself, you reach conclusions.
So I have been doing research, exploring the work and I can assure you that there are many areas that we have discovered that we could promote and generate cooperation between Tanzania and Brazil.
I can start in the area of bilateral relations, for example, where we had these political consultations between Tanzania and Brazil that started back in 2018. These are discussions between these two governments about the sectors in which they think they need to improve cooperation.
Therefore, these consultations had stopped for some time, and we now want to revive them. Therefore, revitalizing political consultations will be one of our top priorities. But when it comes now to initiatives, specific initiatives within various sectors, we have taken several initiatives in this exploratory and research work that we have been doing.
For example, in agriculture, we have been studying very closely the agricultural transformation program in Brazil that was carried out a few years ago. How did it work? Is there anything we can learn for Tanzania? We can follow this country's example.
But we are also exploring possibilities for cooperation in training and research and in the development of our agriculture. There are many advances in this country in terms of training, there are universities, training centers, and we think we can develop cooperation in some areas.
There is the area of technology transfer and especially the improved use of mechanization in the agricultural sector, something this country has achieved a lot and we think there is a lot we can learn from. We want to talk and reflect on cooperation in the production of quality seeds. This is very important if we want to increase agricultural productivity.
Obviously, producing quality seeds is crucial. There is the issue of irrigation, we have done our research, we have done our studies in this area, and we think that a lot of progress has been made in this area in this country and therefore there is a lot that we can learn.
There is the issue of capacity development and support services for small and medium-scale farmers, because one of the main characteristics of the Agricultural Transformation Program, as we have learned in this country, is that it did not seek to liquidate, surprise or eliminate small farmers.
But within the planning of this transformation program, I think that efforts were made to ensure that small farmers have space within this transformation. He is not eliminated. Therefore, we think that, in this fact and reality, there is something we can learn.
There are issues of capacity development and support for agricultural cooperatives. I think that very large steps have been taken in this country in terms of supporting cooperatives. I think that cooperatives played a very important role in transforming agriculture in this country because we also had, and have had, cooperatives in Tanzania.
I think we can learn a lot from Brazil and we can use these lessons to strengthen our own cooperatives. When it comes to specific products and crops, for example, we have developed an interest in sugarcane cultivation and sugar production.
We know that Brazil leads the world in this area and we also have our own struggles in Tanzania and we think there is a lot to learn from this country. There is the issue of fertilizer production. We also thought that there might be initiatives we could take in this area.
But Brazil has also supported two projects in Tanzania: Cotton Victoria and Beyond Cotton. They have to do with increasing cotton production, but within this context, many valuable lessons and lessons were learned.
We have been discussing with the project implementers, the World Food Program in Brazil and of course, these projects were implemented with the support of the Brazilian government. So there are very good lessons that have been learned, which we think can be replicated elsewhere in Tanzania. Many valuable lessons.
And if we want to talk about these lessons, we need their own session because there are so many, many interesting lessons. But if we go to the field of livestock and fisheries, we have been working on the availability of fish feed, but also on the possibility of having an investment from Brazil in the construction of a factory that will produce fish feed.
Because there are efforts in Tanzania by the government to promote fish farming, we have also been working on obtaining a good breed of cattle for meat and dairy cattle.
I heard a story from India that Brazil, many years ago, maybe more than 100 years ago, took some breeds from India to Brazil and then developed them over time. But now it is India that is looking for Brazil to import these breeds of cattle. It's an interesting area that we think we might want to do something about.
In the same area, the fishing and livestock sector, there is the issue of poultry farming or chicken farming where, again, this country leads the world. I think about chicken meat production. So chicken farming, and we think there's a lot we can learn from this country.
Should I continue? There are so many things, so many initiatives in other sectors… I can talk about them quickly.
Initiatives in the tourism sector. We are creating plans to see if we can promote Tanzania's tourist attractions. We have many attractions that we can present to Brazil, such as wildlife tourism, but also beach tourism. I know that Brazil is very developed in terms of beach tourism, but we also have beach tourism attractions in Tanzania.
But in the same vein, to see if we can learn from Brazil in terms of how to organize and manage beach tourism and nature tourism, which Brazil is very good at. We have initiatives in the housing sector. And all these initiatives that I'm talking about, we did some follow-up work.
So we've been pretty busy. We have initiatives in the housing sector. We were very impressed with the program from Brazil, “Minha Casa, Minha Vida”, in Swahili, “Nyumba Yangu, Maisha Yangu”.
We are trying to see if we can replicate that in Tanzania. But we are also undertaking initiatives to see if we can establish partnerships between cities and create sister city agreements between cities in Brazil and cities here in terms of trade and investment. We have been working on an agreement that has been in progress for some time, the agreement to avoid double taxation.
We want to see if we can finish it. But we have also been working on pairing and promoting cooperation between our Chambers of Commerce, that is, the Brazilian Chambers of Commerce and the Tanzanian Chambers of Commerce. But of course, we started with the Chambers of Commerce in the state of Rio de Janeiro.
In the energy sector, we were inspired by the production and use of ethanol in this country. And so we started discussions with our government back there to see if we can learn about the production and use of ethanol. There is also the production and use of biogas. I know there are factories that produce biogas.
But we also want to see if we can continue cooperation between some of the Brazilian institutions working in the oil and gas sector and their counterparts in Tanzania. In the mining sector too, we have been working in this area. And, in this area, we want to see if we can create and develop cooperation and training in cutting precious stones in Brazil.
Again, I believe that Brazil is doing very well in this area, learning from what is happening in Belo Horizonte or Minas Gerais in the education, science and technology, and languages sector.
We became aware of the existence of technology parks and want to see if we can replicate the same in Tanzania. But we also want to start teaching Swahili in Brazil, but this will go hand in hand with teaching Portuguese in Tanzania.
If we promote Tanzanian tourist attractions in Brazil, then it would probably be necessary for us to promote a bit of teaching Portuguese to visitors coming from Brazil, to be able to say “good morning”, “welcome”, “how are you” to them. , “tranquil”, “beauty”…
In the health sector too, we have taken some initiatives, specifically to have access to quality medicines manufactured in Brazil. But also, to see if we can attract some of the companies that have invested here to come and also invest in Tanzania in the production of similar medicines.
And finally, in the sports sector, we work on creating cooperation links between sports agencies and institutions in Brazil, especially in football. Brazil and football. Football, for Brazil, is like a religion. So, create links with Tanzania and institutions in the field of sport and football in particular. So these are the initiatives.
(BAD): Let's discuss a more current topic. How can Brazil and Tanzania explore joint opportunities in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and address global challenges such as climate change and promoting social equality?
(AK): Thank you very much for these two questions. Firstly, the entire agenda behind the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is very pertinent for these two countries, for Tanzania and for Brazil, because the main objective is a discussion about development, sustainable development.
Now, specifically choosing the issues of climate change and social equality, in my opinion, there are two ways in which Brazil and Tanzania can work together to improve the agenda or to boost, rather, the agenda in these two areas.
The first way would be to work together on regional and international platforms where these issues are being discussed or worked on, etc., etc. This is possible in my opinion because I understand that Tanzania and Brazil tend to share the same positions, the same objectives when it comes to these issues.
I'm talking about the environment, for example. I understand that Tanzania and Brazil share the same positions; know. There are no contradictions, there are no contrasts in positions.
And when we also talk about social equality, I tend to believe that Tanzania and Brazil also share the same positions, because when we talk about social equality, we would necessarily talk about things like access to economic opportunities, access to social services, participation in political processes. .
I understand that Brazil tends to share the same positions and has similar approaches and, sometimes, initiatives in these areas. So, this was the first way as I mentioned, about working together on regional and international platforms, cooperating, supporting each other.
But the second way could be to develop bilateral programs that address these areas. Thus, Tanzania and Brazil could develop bilateral programs in the field of the environment, for example, in the context of agricultural projects. An environmental issue can be incorporated, integrated.
And when we talk about social inclusion, for example, I give the example of ensuring that small farmers within Brazil's agricultural transformation program have space. It is not suppressed, it is not liquidated, it is not killed by the big farmers. Therefore, I think that some of these things can be incorporated, inculcated into bilateral programs that can be developed between Tanzania and Brazil.
(BAD): Mr. Ambassador, I presume that you had the opportunity to perceive similarities between Tanzania and Brazil that, in a certain way, facilitate the strengthening of relations between the two countries. Is there a specific project that can highlight where these cultural similarities have been important?
(AK): Yes, thanks for the question. Perhaps I would start by saying that, when we talk about culture, language is also part of that culture. We have similarities starting with the linguistic platform. The language we speak in Tanzania, Swahili, has some words from Portuguese.
We have words like “Mesa”, “Bandeira”, “Limão”, “Pessa” and many others, which are basically Portuguese, but also Swahili. This occurs because historically, the Portuguese passed along the coast of East Africa.
There are also cultural similarities between Brazil and Tanzania. But in any case, even in the absence of similarities, there is interest in learning about each other's culture. In terms of what we can do, we thought we could plan and encourage cultural experience visits between these two countries.
People from Brazil can come to Tanzania and Brazilians can experience cultural aspects within tourism. Likewise, groups from Tanzania can visit Brazil, experience the culture, including participating in Carnival events. We can also create cooperation between institutions that promote culture in Tanzania and Brazil.
For example, we had discussions with samba schools in Brazil to explore cooperation around the culture. In fact, we will be bringing a Maasai cultural group from Tanzania to Brazil for Brazilian Fashion Week. This will showcase our cultural artefacts and our products. So, this is how we can promote cultural cooperation between these two countries.
(BAD): Mr. Kilangi, to conclude this interview, taking into account your rich diplomatic experience, what advice can you offer to future young diplomats and academics who aspire to follow a path similar to yours?
(AK): There is a lot I can say here, but for the sake of brevity, my advice to future academics and budding diplomats would be to learn and go through a 360-degree learning process. Most young people nowadays tend to focus only on their profession or career, leaving other issues aside.
In my opinion, anyone who has a 360-degree learning process becomes a better diplomat. He learns about economic issues, political issues, social issues, world issues, agriculture, energy, industry, practically everything that affects him in his life.
Learn about cultural issues. This way you can have an open mind and a good diplomat is someone who has an open mind. A narrow approach can limit your view of things and issues. An open-minded diplomat has a better chance of finding solutions to problems. This is my very personal vision.
(BAD): Thank you very much for this rich interview. “Asante” for the opportunity (Asante means thank you in Swahili). Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador. I hope we can carry out many projects between Brazil and Tanzania. Thank you for your presence.
(AK): Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to share what we do with a wider audience. I will always be ready to participate in another interview, if you think it is important.
(BAD): Thank you.
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