Poverty In Tanzania Research Articles

Dangerous But Consumed: Drivers of Tobacco and Alcohol Expenditure and Their Implications on Healthcare Costs and Food Poverty in Tanzania

Dangerous But Consumed: Drivers of Tobacco and Alcohol Expenditure and Their Implications on Healthcare Costs and Food Poverty in Tanzania

Impact of productive social safety net on households' vulnerability to poverty in Tanzania.

Social safety nets are expanding in Sub-Saharan Africa. While proponents perceive them as a means to combat poverty and vulnerability, opponents view them as wasteful use of scarce public resources and do not significantly overcome poverty. Previous studies have primarily focused on assessing the impact of these policies on current poverty levels, with insufficient evidence available regarding their impact on future poverty, which deserves equal attention. We drew on the Tanzanian 2017-18 Household Budget Survey, comprising 9,463 households to evaluate the impact of productive social safety net (PSSN) program on households' vulnerability to poverty (VP). The VP was evaluated using vulnerability as expected poverty (VEP), whereas the impact was estimated using Instrumental Variable (IV) method. We found that PSSN reduces household VP by 13.4%, suggesting that it is an effective policy instrument for reducing poverty and vulnerability. Notably, the estimated impacts were greater for households enrolled in conditional cash transfer (CCT) and public work (PW) combined, suggesting that a package of CCT and PW is likely to have a more substantial impact within the realm of social safety nets. Our findings offer evidence in favor of policies that promote the broader expansion of social safety nets as anti-poverty policy instruments.

Estimations of Multidimensional Energy Poverty in Tanzania

This study assesses the level of multidimensional energy poverty in Tanzania. The study uses descriptive and inferential statistics based on data from the 2015-2016 Tanzania Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), as they provide the most comprehensive datasets for this analysis. The analysis revealed that 74.1% of households were in rural areas, while the remaining 25.9% were in urban areas. Moreover, the study found that 80.6% of household heads were considered multidimensionally energy-poor. For inferential statistics, the Alkire-Foster estimates found that 81.2% of households in Tanzania were multidimensionally energy-poor, with higher rates of energy poverty in rural areas (94.2%) and among female-headed households (84.0%). Moreover, the findings show that the dimension of modern fuel contributes the most to the Multidimensional Energy Poverty Index (MEPI) (43.6%) compared to the asset (17.9%) and education (38.5%) dimensions. The study recommends that Tanzania invest in expanding access to modern cooking fuels and electricity, improving asset ownership, and enhancing educational opportunities to address multidimensional energy poverty. We recommend that the government emphasize and focus on both renewable energy and energy efficiency development in the country by implementing energy initiatives based on National Energy Policy 2015 to increase access to modern energy services and share renewable energies in the electricity generation mix to enhance availability, reliability, and security of supply.

Applying ‘merging of knowledge’ in Tanzania: What can we learn about interrupting patterned relationships to reveal hidden dimensions of poverty?

Merging of Knowledge is a research approach that creates the conditions for people with lived experience of poverty to participate at an equal level with academics and practitioners, in the co-generation of knowledge about poverty. This paper reflects critically on the application of ‘Merging of Knowledge’ to study poverty in Tanzania, assessing its challenges, achievements, and lessons learned about revealing hidden knowledge about poverty. It also provides a brief literature review to place the Merging of Knowledge alongside other participatory approaches. This paper finds that Merging of Knowledge can effectively interrupt patterned social relationships, and empower individuals and peer groups, thereby stimulating transformation of both academics and people and poverty. It does so by addressing imbalances in social status, empowering all groups of participants at each stage of the research, and building trust, confidence, and freedom from fear in a sustainable manner. The conclusion drawn is that Merging of Knowledge holds great promise for future research on topics where strong hierarchies of knowledge exist, and where the physical inclusion of participants in data collection is not readily translated into intellectual inclusivity during analysis and the dissemination of findings.

Impact of Universal Old Age Benefit to Revenue and Poverty Reduction in Tanzania

This manuscript analyzes the impact of old age benefit policy reforms on government revenue, income sharing, and poverty in Tanzania. This is an instrument for strengthening social protection. In this context, a universal old-age pension might assist Tanzania's Mainland in reducing income inequality in a similar manner to the positive outcome identified among developed countries in the European Union. This study uses a static microsimulation model for Tanzania (TAZMOD v2.4). The simulation model is based on social benefit reforms resulting from changes in the old age benefit policy. The two reforms were proposed. The findings found that in both proposed reforms, there is an increase in Government returns over taxes; Social Security Contribution (SSC) and indirect taxes increase by 5.31 percent from TSH 8,870,422.74 to TSH 9,368,616.08, respectively. Also, the share of the poor population decreased by 0.55%. Regarding the effect on poverty, it decreases by 0.55 percent in the two proposed reforms. The empirical results of the presented quantitative analyses have concrete policy implications: It can be concluded that there is an urgent need to reform the targeting of social pensions as the majority of the elderly and poor continue to be excluded from the benefits. The Government can introduce the old age benefit to people 60 years of age and older; hence, the outcomes are significant, and their space depends unfavorably on whether the profit sum is allocated. The government could improve old age benefits to address the issue of poverty and later improve old-age livelihoods.

Micro-Investment by Tanzanian Smallholders’ in Drip Irrigation Kits for Vegetable Production to Improve Livelihoods: Lessons Learned and a Way Forward

Food security in sub-Saharan Africa is one of the major issues confronting the continent. Innovative use of fresh water, the world’s scarcest food production resource, is vital for family-run small-holder agricultural systems, which supply up to 80% of the world’s food. Agriculture employs 70% of Tanzania’s rural population and supplies 95% of the country’s food. The goal was to measure the impact of smart drip irrigation kits on smallholder farmers’ resilience and rural poverty in Tanzania. A household survey was conducted using an exploratory sequential design in four districts (Babati, Hai, Kasulu, and Kilosa) in Tanzania. A total of 383 respondents (Micro-investing (MI) farmers, n = 195; control, n = 187) were randomly selected from a pool of 3444 farmers. Partial budgeting and enterprise economic analysis were used for the calculation of gross margins, and multivariate analysis was used for poverty analysis. Gross margin analysis showed that communities using drip-irrigated vegetable farming are more profitable. Partial budgeting analysis showed that micro-irrigation increased the revenue generation for most vegetable varieties. However, multivariate analysis was unable to confirm that household poverty was markedly reduced through the adoption of this technology. Half of the MI farmers could afford an education for their children due to the extra income generated from MI. This investment strategy has the potential to improve smallholder livelihoods and resilience to climate change.

Adult Literacy Education and Reduction of Poverty in Tanzania: A Review of Policies and their Implementation

Literacy builds a foundation for further learning and necessitates human capital development that creates a knowledge economy. A clear focus on literacy policies is fundamental in achieving national and international socio-economic targets. In Tanzania, adult literacy growth has been slow, inconsistent, and characterized by regional gaps. A review of policies and practices has revealed several constraints associated with budget allocation and cultural perspectives. We suggest to the governments in the whole developing world to prioritize consistent funding and formulating culture-sensitive policies in ensuring mass literacy, poverty reduction, creation of high productive personnel, and eventually achieve the UNESCO’s Agenda 2030

Assessing the poverty impact of the COVID-19-induced tourism crisis in Tanzania: a social accounting matrix microsimulation analysis

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major disruptions to international tourism and has stimulated research interest. This study examines links between COVID-19-induced tourism disruption and poverty in Tanzania. Unlike previous studies linking COVID-19, tourism and poverty, this paper uses a social accounting matrix (SAM) microsimulation analysis that allows decomposition of poverty indices by population subgroup and assessment of the drivers of aggregate poverty. The results of the SAM multiplier analysis indicate that all households will experience reduced incomes, and that this effect will be more pronounced in urban than rural households. The microsimulation results suggest that the COVID-19-induced tourism crisis will exacerbate the poverty headcount, poverty gap and poverty severity, with urban and rural non-farm households being most affected. The results of the poverty decomposition show that the growth effect has a stronger impact than the inequality effect on increased poverty. Poverty increases and inequality decreases simultaneously. The paper suggests several demand- and supply-side policies that may help to build tourism resilience and recovery and alleviate poverty in Tanzania in the post-COVID world.

Public Social Spending and Poverty in Tanzania: A Benefit Incidence Analysis

Research on poverty in relation to public spending has never been as vigorous as it is now. Public spending has along-run effect in reducing the likelihood of being poor. This study estimated the benefit incidence analysis, progressivity of benefit and marginal benefit incidence of public spending on selected social utilities in Tanzania using the household budget surveys of 2000/01 and 2007. Benefit incidence and progressivity of benefit were estimated using the distributive analysis stata package procedure. The result of the analyses shows that public spending on social utilities in Tanzania is not pro-poor. The marginal benefit incidence analysis shows that the poorest quintile can only benefit more than the richest quintile from extra spending on the social utility in which the current accessibility is high. This is mostly the case of primary education as estimated in this study. Finally, from the findings of this study we recommend more efforts by the government to make public spending in Tanzania pro-poor to accelerate the speed at which the poor benefit more from increases in access to social utilities. One of the major ways in which the government can make public spending pro-poor is spending on the sectors that benefit more the poor people such as on social infrastructure (health and education), and on agriculture.
 JEL Classification: D21

Adoption of the Wealth Index Approach in Analyzing the Determinants of Household’s Poverty in Tanzania

This study examines the determinants of poverty in Tanzania using the 2015 Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey data. Ordered logit model was used to model the determinants of poverty and the study revealed that age, sex, household size, level of education, marital status, type of residence and access to financial services are significant in explaining the status of poverty. All of the mentioned variables are significant at 1% except sex of the household head which was significant at 5%. Since it is the global goal to reduce poverty, the study recommends that the government should invest more in education to improve knowledge and skills of individuals, improve financial services and financial inclusion especially in rural areas to eradicate poverty and remove rural-urban disparity. Keywords: Poverty, Household, Wealth Index, Ordered logit model and Tanzania DOI: 10.7176/JESD/12-14-03 Publication date: July 31 st 2021

Climate Variability and Feminization of Poverty in Tanzania: The Contribution of Gendered Ownership and Access to Household Assets

This cross-sectional study assesses the contribution of gendered ownership, control and access to household assets to feminization of poverty in Iringa District, Tanzania, by using a climate variability lens. The study involved 328 respondents from five villages. Data collection methods included structured interviews, focused group discussions, in-depth interviews and documentary review. The data collected was quantitative and qualitative. The study revealed that households in Iringa District are vulnerable to the effects of recurrent droughts and intermittent floods. Furthermore, it was found out that although men and women in Iringa District are affected by climate variability, women are more vulnerable than men. Women’s limited voice in ownership, control, access and equal share of the benefits accrued from household resources increased their vulnerability; this results to feminization of poverty. The study concludes that despite global and local efforts to achieve gender equality by empowering women and girls, in Iringa District, women remain more vulnerable to the effects of climate variability due to, among others, unequal control, ownership, access to and share of the benefits accrued from household assets. It is recommended that women should be placed at the centre of all efforts to realize equality in ownership, control and access to household assets. This will increase women’s resilience to the effects of climate variability, thereby reducing climate-induced feminization of poverty.

Towards Dynamic Assessment of Determinants of Household Vulnerability to Poverty in Tanzania

Abstract The paper examines the determinants of vulnerability to expected poverty in Tanzania. Following Landau et al. (2012), Chaudhuri (2000) and Chaudhuri et al. (2003) on estimating Vulnerability to Expected Poverty (VEP), the paper uses a three waves of Tanzania National Panel Survey Data for Tanzania collected between 2008/2009, 2010/2011 and 2012/2013 to find that being employed in agriculture, residing in rural area and household size turns out to be significantly more likely to be poor in the future, at a given consumption level and in all cross-section combination. It also appeared that most of the variables were statistically insignificant at influencing the conditional variance of future consumption across household characteristics. Lastly, nearly 39.42% and 59.49% of households who were poor in 2008 turned out to be less vulnerable in 2010 and 2012 respectively and the rest turned out to be high vulnerable. Thus, consumption stabilization strategies are likely to be influential if they target families whose household head is aging.

The impact of indirect tax on income distribution and poverty in Tanzania

AbstractThis paper analyzes the impacts of indirect tax benefits policy reforms on income distribution and poverty in Tanzania by applying a standard static microsimulation model TAZMOD v1.8. The simulations model two indirect tax reforms involving changes to the excise duty and value‐added tax rates on alcoholic beverages and tobacco products, and changes to employers’ and employees’ contributions to the National Health Insurance Fund. The results of the first reform find a positive effect on government tax revenue and a neutral effect on income distribution and poverty. The results of the second reform find a positive effect on household income distribution and consumption. The findings show that, despite increasing unequal income distribution, poverty indicators fell.

The Fostering Small Business Entrepreneurship in Tanzania

Small Business Entrepreneurship has been seen as a hub in generating income for the majority of urban dwellers with no formal paid employment. In Tanzania, entry into small business entrepreneurship is usually not seen as a problem. One can start small business at any time and in any place. However, the development of this informal sector has been profoundly characterized by two parallel phenomena which are perhaps contradictory in character. This has led to the proliferation and mushrooming of small businesses most of which are in the form of petty trading, generally everywhere in the urban centres. Drawing on research findings, the present paper challenges the possibility of reducing poverty in Tanzania using the strategy of developing the small business entrepreneurship under the situation where there is an increasing level of petty crime and bureaucratic hurdles. It is argued and indeed, concluded that if the present intricate and controversial situation surrounding small business is not reversed, if not brought to rest, the development is on slippery slope. The option suggested to tame the conundrum includes, developing discourse portfolio between small traders and bureaucratic authority and authorities formulating policies that can promote development of small business entrepreneurship.

Global horticultural value chains, labour and poverty in Tanzania

This paper focuses on the effects of emerging global horticultural value chains on labour, rural poverty and inequality in Tanzania, framing the phenomenon in the wider process of socio-economic change after the introduction of neo-liberal reform and the latest agro-transformation policies. While the few empirical studies in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) have focused almost exclusively on formal labour in foreign companies, this article takes into consideration also informal wage labour. The article is based on 6-months of fieldwork in the northern highlands, as part of a wider research project on contract farming and wage labour in the export-oriented horticultural industry. With regards to labourers, a total of 96 in-depth interviews and 5 focus group discussions were undertaken with formal and informal workers; 96 questionnaires were administered; and 13 semi-structured interviews were conducted with foreign companies, NGOs and local authorities. The paper highlights the substantial use of informal workers by both foreign companies and Tanzanian contract farmers and emphasises the fundamental importance of looking at the informal labour market in evaluating the impacts of emerging value chains on rural poverty. It concludes that global horticultural value chains in Tanzania have little impact on poverty reduction and reinforce the ongoing processes of social differentiation and labour exploitation.

Analysis of the Impact of Public Debt on Economic Growth and Poverty in Tanzania

Recently literature revealed that the Tanzania public debt and economic growth are growing simultaneously however the economic growth achievements do not reflect the poverty reduction initiatives in Tanzania. Despite rapid growth of the public debt and poverty for Tanzania no studies have been undertaken to investigate the impact of the public debt on economic growth and poverty in Tanzania. The present study is aiming to evaluate the impact of the public debt on economic growth and poverty during the period from 2000 to 2018 in Tanzania. With this regard the study employed the Multiple linear regression model to evaluate the impact of the public debt on economic growth and poverty during the period from 2000 to 2018 in Tanzania. Time series data from the Bank of Tanzania Annual Reports and the World Bank data indicators during the period from 2000 to 2018 for Tanzania have been used by the study. On investigating the impact of public debt on economic growth and poverty the study assumes public debt to be an independent variable while Gross domestic product (GDP) and poverty to be dependent variables of the study. The findings of the study were indeed very impressive. The study findings showed that there is a negative and insignificant correlation between the public debt and all the study’s dependent macroeconomic variables (Gross domestic product and poverty) during the period from 2000 to 2018 in Tanzania. The meaning is the public debt does not have an impact on the economic growth and poverty reduction during the period from 2000 to 2018 in Tanzania.

Persistent peasant poverty and assets. Exploring dynamics of new forms of wealth and poverty in Tanzania 1999–2018

ABSTRACT Tracking change in rural communities over time is difficult. It is also important. If we are to understand what forms of peasant poverty persist, or how and in what ways peasant communities can become richer, then we require longitudinal studies. These are however few. It is difficult to access the data required for them. I present one case using assets to track growing prosperity. I examine why exclusions in other data make tracking assets important, and the limitations of longitudinal research for capturing contemporary conditions.

Internal Migration and Vulnerability to Poverty in Tanzania

This paper investigates internal migration and vulnerability to poverty in Tanzania. It examines whether migration reduced household vulnerability to poverty for a panel of households from the Kagera region over the period 2004-2010. The dataset allows the analysis of two samples of households: those with the same head in the periods considered and an enlarged network of split-off households. The potential endogeneity of migration is controlled by both matching methods and an exogenous variation. A severe drought in 2008-09 affected the areas of the country with a bimodal rain season, but not those with a unimodal rain season. It is thus possible to study the heterogeneity of migrants with respect to an unanticipated shock in the region of destination. The evidence shows that migration reduced vulnerability to basic needs and to food consumption poverty for families which experienced migration to unimodal regions. The results are consistent with migration as a risk management strategy by households.

Poverty and Development in Tanzania

The paper investigates the relationship between development, as measured by the GNI per capita and lived poverty in Tanzania which is measured on the basis of whether and how often respondents go, in the course of one year, without food, water, medical care, cooking fuel and cash income. By using the data collected by Afrobarometer in Tanzania, we are able to create one set of indicators that capture the extension of lived poverty, that is what percentage of the respondents, experiences deprivation, but we also develop a series of indicators that capture the severity of lived poverty, that is how frequently respondents experience this problem. Our statistical analyses reveal that while Tanzanian progress along the developmental path did not have a significant impact on the extension of lived poverty, it made a large and significant contribution to reduce its severity.

Effects of Small-Scale Agricultural Crop Commercialisation on Rural Household Welfare in Tanzania: A Case Study of Liwale District, Lindi Region

This study aimed at examining the effect of crop commercialisation on rural households’ poverty in Tanzania. The household survey data was collected from a sample of 389 rural households. Commercialisation index was used to estimate the level of household crop commercialisation. The principal component analysis was used to develop a household welfare index which was then clustered to identify poor and non-poor households through cluster analysis, the method automatically guided the decision retaining two clusters by calculating the measure-of-fit that is Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC). To examine the factors affecting the household poverty status, a logistic model was employed. Results revealed that the majority (65.6%) of the households are poor. The level of crop commercialisation is averaged to 66% indicating a commercialised farming practice. The results further showed that crop commercialisation, women participation in crop income allocation, off-farm income, access to extension services and household size significantly reduce household poverty while household head’s age had an adverse effect. The study suggests that the small and medium agricultural processing units in rural areas should be given priorities and strengthened since they are crucial to promoting the level of commercialisation among rural households. Furthermore, in periods of sufficient and excess harvest, the crops trade restrictions with the neighbour countries should be eliminated to increase the level of commercialisation and earnings to the local rural farmers.