What Treasury stands to gain from Dr Natu's experience

Dar es Salaam. The new permanent secretary for the Ministry of Finance and Planning, Natu El-Maamry Mwamba, is using her experience in academics and the central bank to run the docket which is responsible for government finances, economic policy and financial regulation.

Dr Mwamba was sworn-in yesterday in Dodoma, along with other officials who were appointed over the weekend.

She replaced Mr Emmanuel Tutuba who has been appointed the new governor of the Bank of Tanzania.

Dr Mwamba wrote history in 2011 when she became the first woman to serve on the board of the central bank.

By the time she was appointed to join the BoT board, Dr Mwamba was a faculty member at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) and had already worked at the central bank for seven years on monetary policy and audit committees.

Dr Mwamba was appointed by President Jakaya Kikwete as BoT’s first female deputy governor overseeing the economic and financial policies portfolio.

At the central bank, she was alarmed by the gender gap in management committees.

In a previous interview with The Citizen, Dr Mwamba said had influenced the appointment of a female senior manager to internal committees that lacked female members.

As Dr Mwamba’s time at BoT was coming to an end in 2017, one third of the managerial positions at the central bank were occupied by women.

Dr Mwamba played a critical role in the establishment of Tanzania’s first National Financial Inclusion Framework; which is an initiative that requires financial institutions to provide sex disaggregated data.

The data helps promote women’s financial inclusion by identifying the percentage of women with a bank account, a loan or other types of financing, thus aid in increating strategies to boost their numbers.

“My time as deputy governor proved to me the importance of amplifying women’s voices and sharing their perspectives in high places,” she said.

Until her appointment over the weekend, Dr Mwamba was a senior lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam’s School of Economics. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom and a Masters’ degree from the University of Dar es Salaam.

Her areas of research interests include financial inclusion, informal sector, transport sector, microeconomics (Household level), gender issues and policy analysis.

Dr Mwamba is an accomplished publisher, with dozens of academic publications to her name, covering various economic, social and women issues.

“The inclusion of women in every aspect of the financial sector is an urgent priority. It is important for us to communicate with our male colleagues to normalize female leadership,” she explained.