Crisis and Structural Adjustment: Tanzanian Women's Politics

Abstract

The United Nations Women's Conference in Nairobi was the high point of official and unofficial attention to women in Africa in the entire International Decade for Women. The conference seemingly had a profound capacity to influence subsequent policies, programs, and organizational efforts to empower women. Yet the internationally derived economic crisis has had an even more profound effect on Tanzanian women's work and politics. Since independence, but particularly since the 1967 Arusha Declaration, Tanzania has made remarkable progress in extending access to education and health care facilities. As a result of crisis and structural adjustment policies, however, state budgetary investments have moved from social to productive sectors; budget redirection looms large in explanations of women's work and politics.