Mr. Mark Magila holds a B.Sc. in Agriculture degree from Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania (1985). He then proceeded to obtain his M.Sc. in Agricultural Economics degree in 1989 at the University of Anglia in the UK. Further, he possesses several post-graduate certificates including one on ‘Planning and Appraisal of Agro-Industrial projects’ awarded by University of Bradford, UK (1990) and one on ‘Management of Agricultural and Rural Development’ from University of Manchester, UK (1993), to mention a few. Mark is a seasoned agricultural economist having worked both in the public and private sectors. He worked for 12 years as a project planner/analyst in the Project Preparation and Monitoring Bureau (PPMB) of the Ministry of Agriculture; where he was Head of the Project Preparation Unit for 2 years and rose through the ranks to the position of Senior Economist.

He worked as an economist for the Food Aid Counterpart Fund (FACF) Secretariat from 1997 to 2001 and later became the coordinator of the FACF Secretariat. The FACF Secretariat was a semi-autonomous section responsible for administering grant funds generated out of sales of imported commodities mainly under the Japanese Food Aid Programmes; others were French and Italian Aid Programmers. Funds generated were used to finance socio-economic development projects.

From 2004 to 2007, Mr. Magila took an unpaid leave from the Ministry and worked as a General Manager at Capital Paints and General Trading Co. Ltd. This was a paint manufacturing and general merchandise firm that was headquartered in Moshi. Being a ‘start-up’ company, Mr. Magila was tasked with establishing appropriate management structures and systems for the company. Thereafter he assisted in the formulation of the firm’s short and medium-term strategies for product and market development.

Since 2008 Mr. Magila has been working as the National Coordinator of the Tanzania Agricultural Partnership (TAP) under the Agricultural Council of Tanzania (ACT). This is a Public-Private Sector Partnership (PPP) using the Value Chain Development (VCD) approach. The programme’s current phase (2020-2023) is mainly financed by the Royal Norwegian Embassy (RNE) in Tanzania. Under this initiative, ACT coordinates and facilitates the collaborative efforts of 30+ CSOs and private sector actors in 33 districts of mainland Tanzania targeting 366,900 primary beneficiaries.