A controlled pilot intervention on community violence prevention, financial and social capital generation in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

Louis Jansen,Anne H Outwater,Till Bärnighausen,Masunga K Iseselo,Michael Lowery Wilson

doi:10.1186/s12889-022-12723-x

Abstract

BackgroundCommunity violence has been found to be highly prevalent in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Increasing socioeconomic inequality has been outlined as one of the main causes of community violence. This controlled pilot trial aimed at evaluating the impact of beekeeping and entrepreneurship training on community violence exposure, financial and social capital generation, and employment structure.MethodsPoisson regression was used to compare pre- and post-intervention risk ratios for community violence exposure. Linear regression was used to depict change in weekly income and utu scores. Employment rate structures were determined pre- and post-intervention.ResultsThis study reports that compared to the Control arm beekeeping and entrepreneurship training appears to have protected young men in Dar es Salaam from exposure to community violence (All = 0.62 (0.40–0.96), Beekeeping = 0.57 (0.30–1.08), Entrepreneurship = 0.62 (0.33–1.17)), while increasing financial (All = 23,145 (− 27,155 – 73,444), Beekeeping = 29,310 (− 26,079 – 84,698), Entrepreneurship = 82,334 (12,274 – 152,293)) and partially also social capital (All = − 0.24 (− 1.35–0.87), Beekeeping = 0.85 (− 0.26–1.96), Entrepreneurship = 0.30 (− 1.16–1.77)). Financial dependency across all arms was reduced from 29.1 to 2.2%.ConclusionsOur study reports that beekeeping training and entrepreneurship seminars appear to have a protective effect against exposure to community violence among young men in Dar es Salaam, while partially also increasing financial and social capital, as well as reducing financial dependency. We recommend that these results should lay the foundation for an adequately powered randomized trial to confirm the study’s efficacy.Trial registrationretrospectively registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (Identifier: NCT04602416; October 26, 2020).

Highlights

Community violence has been found to be highly prevalent in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
As stated above one young man who participated in our study was tragically killed after the introductory session
The associations reported indicate that the three interventions predict a lowered community violence exposure risk among males in Dar es Salaam compared to the Control arm

Summary

Introduction

Increasing socioeconomic inequality has been outlined as one of the main causes of community violence. Community violence is a medico-social problem of public health importance worldwide. Increasing reports of vigilantism and community violence in multiple African countries such as South Africa, Tanzania, Liberia, Ghana and Zimbabwe, have aroused significant concern over. In South Africa for example, vigilantism is one of the most common forms of community violence, and one which is often directed towards the South African justice system [2]. In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, community violence has been found to be highly prevalent. Increasing income inequality in combination with mistrust, have been outlined as two of the main causes of community violence [1, 6]. Previous research in Tanzania has revealed that unemployment or marginal employment is one of the most important variables in predicting violent death in Dar es Salaam [7]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion