Tanzania makes progress in poverty eradication efforts
Today many people living in destitute poverty experience their dignity being denied and disrespected. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
- In Tanzania, the day reflects multiple faces of poverty resilience, from poverty rate decline of 11.7 percent in 2007 to 8 percent in 2018 (34 percent to 26 percent), to increase of 1 percent in 2021
By Shimbo Pastory and Johnson Mwamasangula
“Dignity for All in Practice” is the umbrella theme of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty for 2022. The term ‘dignity’ is very functional here, because dignity goes beyond the abstract concept; it constitutes the basis for all fundamental rights. Today many people living in destitute poverty experience their dignity being denied and disrespected. With the commitment to end poverty, the 2030 Agenda again gestures toward the same aspiration established under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Currently, statistics show that 1.3 billion people still live in multidimensional poverty with almost half of them being children and youth. Persons living in poverty experience many interrelated and mutually reinforcing deprivations that prevent them from realising their rights and perpetuate their poverty. This includes dangerous work conditions, unsafe housing, lack of nutritious food, unequal access to justice, lack of political power or representation, and limited access to health care.
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Tanzanian growth profile
In Tanzania, the day reflects multiple faces of poverty resilience, from poverty rate decline of 11.7 percent in 2007 to 8 percent in 2018 (34 percent to 26 percent), to increase of 1 percent (27 percent) in 2021. In the year 2000, 86 percent of Tanzanians were living in impoverished conditions, but this number dropped to 28 percent in 2018 with record breaking of Tanzania reducing poverty at the highest percentage from 3.2 percent to 2.6 percent from 2000 through 2015.
According to the 2019 analysis by World Bank titled Tanzania-Mainland Poverty Assessment a remarkable transition of sustained economic growth which helped the country to level up from poor or under developed country to Lower-Middle Income Country (LMIC) has been achieved by the continued efforts to improve service delivery, but still it is important for Tanzania to accelerate the pace of poverty reduction as the number of poor people remain high.
There is a considerable number of non-poor people living just above the poverty line vulnerable to the risk of slipping below it due to the rise in cost of living fuelled by ongoing armed conflicts in Ukraine and other parts of East and Southern Africa regions, unpredictable climatic changes and aftershocks of Covid-19 outbreak.
On this day, productive social safety net programs like Tanzania Social Action Fund (Tasaf) and Productive Social Safety Nets (PSSN) have played an important role in reducing poverty vulnerability to more than one million people in a year. Other poverty reduction strategies seek to increase the quality of life such as on access to education, clean water, sanitation, and health services. These have helped to bring a drop in counts of child and maternal mortality rate and malaria contraction.
Cash transfer programs to the vulnerable have proven to be effective in lessening extreme poverty in the country as noted by World Bank. Efforts done by the government with multiple stakeholders in the fulfilment of goals set in the Tanzania Development Vision 2025 and SDGs through the National Strategies for Growth and Reduction of Poverty I and II (NSGRP I & II) has helped in accelerating economic growth, improving the standard of living, good governance and building public sector institutions and capabilities, leveraging digital technologies and social welfare of the people.
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Policies for dignity
In reducing poverty this year’s theme ‘dignity for all in practice’ is paramount. Human capital investment is essential in ensuring respect of individual’s dignity as it enables households at all income levels to access economic opportunities and benefit from growth which is crucial in breaking the barriers in economic development.
We also commemorate this day by supporting the hard work invested by the government in making education more accessible, bettering transportation infrastructure and placing emphasis on vocational education and education for girls. All these have in the long run helped in reducing income poverty, increasing access to basic necessities and improving government infrastructure. Also, IMF reports that that Tanzania has become more accountable to its people, less corrupt and has increased citizen participation in governance.
Beyond economics
Despite of the significant achievement the country has reached in eradicating poverty, still the government should know that poverty is not solely an economic issue, but also a multidimensional phenomenon that encompasses lack of both income and basic capabilities to live in dignity. It is the duty of the government and international stakeholders to ensure prevention of poverty deprivation schemes that affects realisation and respect of human rights and dignity.
To prevent the structurally impoverished parent from passing poverty dividends to their offspring, the government should mobilise additional effort in bridging the significantly apart living standard gaps between rural and urban areas.
More opportunities should be directed to rural areas to lessen the existing disparities in well-being. But apart from rural-urban divide in poverty, significant regional disparities persist in living standards. Poverty is still at the peak among the lake zone districts which are further disadvantaged in terms of vulnerability to climate-change induced natural disasters like drought.
On the 13th Tanzania Economic Update, Transforming Agriculture-Realising the Potential of Agriculture for Inclusive Growth and Poverty Reduction, it was noted that there is a need to further market orientation and value addition in the agriculture sector as about 79 percent share of the total employment comes from agricultural activities and agriculture contributes to the 75 percent of the national GDP.
Going forward to commemorate this day, we recommend that the governments need to invest in human capital and skills development of its current and future workforce coupled with better enabling environment that fosters self-employment and entrepreneurship opportunities. Small firms’ growth and survival chances further agricultural transformation and reduces vulnerability to negative domestic and international economic and weather shocks such as Covid-19 outbreak and the armed conflict in Ukraine which challenges efforts already on the run to curb poverty rate. This is because globally, inequalities of opportunities and income are surging thus widening the gap between the rich and the poor.
Reminder
Covid-19 prospered in exposing social protection system gaps and failures as well as structural inequalities and diverse forms of discrimination that hinder efforts to combat poverty, and which deepen and perpetuate poverty to the non-poor population. Covid-19 has already been the worst reversal on the path towards the goal of global poverty reduction. However, with joint effort with global stakeholders we will bear it, becoming resilient to the future shocks and come up with the better plan to contain poverty especially to those living in dire and vulnerability conditions.
Shimbo Pastory and Johnson Mwamasangula are Tanzanian social development researchers and activists
