In the Tanzanian context, when one talks of Regional Administration means the subdivision of the geographical territory of the United Republic of Tanzania into Central Government administrative units and the functioning of the established structures in those subdivisions.

For the purposes of this brief, reference is only to the Mainland part of the Republic. There are three levels of Central Government administrative units, which are Regions, Districts and Divisions.

The division of the territory into administrative units is the prerogative of the President of the United Republic as stipulated under article 2(2) of the Constitution of the United Republic and guided by The Regions and Districts (Establishment Procedure) Act No. 12 of 1994.

Presently, there are 21 Regions, 106 Districts and 516 Divisions on the Mainland Tanzania. A Region is headed politically by a Regional Commissioner (RC) while the head of the Civil Service at that level is the Regional Administrative Secretary (RAS).

At the District level, there is the District Commissioner (DC) as the principal assistant to the Regional Commissioner at that level and the District Administrative Secretary (DAS) as the head of the Civil Service. Until recently, Divisional Secretary, which was a political post, headed the Division but this is being transformed into a Civil Service post whose title is still being debated. In terms of functioning, Regional Administration has a vision of strengthened capability to offer a multi-skilled technical resource for supporting local development initiatives to exploit locally identified opportunities and linking Central Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) as well as Development Partners to the Local Government Authorities (LGAs).

The mission of the Regional tier of the Central Government is to perform the two major roles of Development and Administration.

In as far as the Development role is concerned, it centers on building the capacity of and backstopping the LGAs in the performance of their mandated roles in an effective and efficient manner. The Regional tier using its Regional Secretariat performs this role through four clusters, each headed by an Assistant Administrative Secretary (AAS), all of who report to the (RAS). The clusters at RAS are Management Support Services, Economic Development Support Services, Physical Planning and Engineering Support Services and Social Sector support Services.

A fifth cluster of Staff Support Services serves the Secretariat itself internally. The Administrative role of the Regional Secretariat addresses three major areas of ensuring peace and tranquility within their areas of jurisdiction;
facilitating and assisting LGAs to undertake and discharge their responsibilities by providing an enabling environment and representing Central Government within the region.

The manning levels of each of the 21 Regional Secretariats is 83, but studies are under way to establish optimal manning levels for each Secretariat, depending on actual needs of each of them.

The ongoing Local Government Reforms have resulted into new relations between the Regions and the LGAs, whereby the former now have been charged with the role of policy interpretation, advise, coordination, monitoring, enforcement and creation of an enabling environment for the LGAs to discharge their duties.

In other words, Regions are more of facilitators rather than providers.