Publication Details

Explanation for poverty mobility in Tanzania in the light of governance

Kim Kayunze
Oswald Mashindano
Festo Maro
2010

Abstract

In order to attain the Tanzanian Development Vision 2025 (TDV 2025) whereby Tanzania has planned to have eradicated absolute poverty by 2025, the National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (NSGRP) (2005-2010) heeds governance as a key ingredient for poverty alleviation. However, there are many incidents of decisions about, and implementation of, economic and social development activities being inefficient, associated with bribery, not transparent, and inequitable. This paper analyses what governance issues really matter for poverty mobility in Tanzania. The data for the paper were collected through key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and individual life histories in Nkasi, Magu, and Newala Districts from September to November 2009 as part of a big study titled “Chronic Poverty and Development Policy in Tanzania…” It was found that: there were biases in provision of education, health and water services; in the education sector there were complaints of bribery in construction of classrooms, and allocation and transfer of teachers; access to justice was little among women and poorer community members; in some communities the education, health  and water sectors were affected by lack of transparency in expenditure of community members’ monetary contributions and allocation of materials including medicines; participation in decision making was little due to many community members not attending meetings in which the decisions were being made; and there was late completion of construction works and distribution of agricultural inputs. Based on the findings, it is concluded that the above problems exacerbate poverty. Therefore, it is recommended that the second phase of the NSGRP (2011-2015) should give more weight on governance issues, including the above ones, lest they constrain the pace towards the attainment of TDV 2025.

Publication Type(s)

Conference Paper

Ten Years of War Against Poverty Conference Papers

Conference: Ten Years of War Against Poverty

Downloads

Back to previous page