‘Number of poor Tanzanians remains high’

Food vendors who struggle to make ends meet form part of the majority poor Tanzanians. (File photo)

THE rapid increase of the country’s population is making the number of poor Tanzanians remain relatively high, according to government statistics. “In 2011/12 about 12 million Tanzanians were still poor.

The majority of them were in rural areas, which points to where government efforts should be directed if the country wishes to accelerate reduction of income poverty,” Finance Minister Ms Saada Salum Mkuya has said.

The share of consumption of the poorest 20 per cent in Tanzania grew by 16 per cent which is the fastest rate compared to all other quintiles, the minister revealed.

“This shows that government policies continue to produce results which mostly favour the poor. As a result, Tanzania is among the 10 most-equal societies/countries in African continent,” she said.

“The government will continue to address issues of inequality through effective pro-poor policies in order to avoid the danger of social and political instability associated with feeling of deprivation.”Ensuring modest inequality will be one of the pillars for the sustainability of the growth process and gains in social wellbeing that Tanzania has achieved in the recent past, the minister said at the launch of the Poverty Assessment Report for Tanzania Mainland in Dar es Salaam last week.

The report points out that gains in living standards and social wellbeing range from improvement in housing living condition to human development outcomes.

These gains include households with improved wall material houses increased from 34 per cent in 2007 to 46 in 2011/12. Based on Household Budget Survey 2011/12, both primary and secondary net enrolment increased as a result of implementation of Primary and Secondary Education Development.

Net Primary enrolment increased to 78 per cent whereas Secondary enrolment increased from two per cent in 2001 to 22 per cent in 2011/12.

“However, we note that one of the major challenges in education sector has been the quality of education. Nevertheless, efforts to addressing this concern are full geared through the Big Results Now (BRN) initiatives and recent initiative of construction laboratories for each ward secondary school,” Ms Mkuya said.

According to the minister, in the health sector significant progress is also being recorded as infant mortality has declined from 68/1000 live birth in 2004/05 to 51/1000 live birth in 2010.

Likewise under five years mortality has declined from 112 in 2004/05 to 81 in 2010. The minister said although there is significant progress in many fronts, there are also challenges which the report on Poverty Assessment for Tanzania Mainland has revealed. Poverty is high in rural areas, higher among large families, families whose heads of households have low level of education and those households with low access to infrastructure.

“This clearly informs what aspects/ areas of government policies should address for instance, expansion of quality rural infrastructure in an equitable manner and increased access and quality of education at upper levels,” the minister underscored.

Government policies have always been directed to addressing those challenges through various interventions and initiatives. But the fact that the report still points to them, it means that more efforts are still required in those areas.

Moreover, the report comes at an opportune time when the government has commended the process of reviewing its two major development frameworks, MKUKUTA II and Five-Year Development Plan I.

The findings of the report, thus, form critical inputs to the review process and subsequently to the formulation of the successor national development plan.

Going forward, the findings will assist the government in outlining development priorities for Tanzania in her effort to accelerating economic growth and social progress which are key dimensions of sustainable development postulated in Sustainable Development Goals.

The Poverty Assessment for Tanzania Mainland has revealed that Tanzania is moving, poverty is declining as economic growth accelerates. Furthermore prospects have presented for even more positive dynamic Tanzania.

For example, Tanzania has made discoveries of massive natural gas and other industrial minerals. Moreover, its large youthful population and growing middle class as the report shows are among the factors which raise high Tanzania’s prospects as one of the larger economies and potential drive in the region.

As Tanzania moves to harness these prospects, the government efforts will be aimed at the ultimate goal of making Tanzania a povertyfree country as stated in the National Development Vision 2025.

Based on the 2012 Household Budget Survey, the Tanzania Mainland Poverty Assessment highlights the country’s first significant decline in poverty in 20 years.

Basic needs poverty, which refers to the minimum resources needed for physical wellbeing, declined from 34.4 per cent in 2006, to 28.2 per cent by 2012.

During the same time period, extreme poverty also decreased from 11.7 per cent to 9.7 per cent. “There are emerging signs of increased participation of the poor in the growth process during the last five years,” said Nadia Belhaj Hassine Belghith, World Bank senior economist and lead author of the report.

“The government will be able use this information to examine how this happened as they continue to devise policies to further accelerate extreme poverty eradication and promote growth, because in reality around 12 million Tanzanian people still live in poverty, and more than four million citizens continue to be in extreme poverty.”

Although there has been recent growth that has helped Tanzania’s poorest, the report emphasizes that approximately 70 per cent of Tanzanians continue to live with less than 2 US Dollars per day.

To build on this growth and reach more people, the assessment recommends promoting faster economic growth in labor intensive sectors, including agriculture where threequarters of Tanzanians continue to be employed.

Reducing population growth and the country’s high fertility rate on average, five children per woman by empowering them through education and employment support and with family planning services can stimulate per capita economic growth further, according to the report.

The assessment also underscores the need for specific measures to develop the rural economy and agriculture and to diversify livelihoods to include nonfarm businesses, which can be more helpful than agricultural activities to help households reduce poverty. Tanzania’s national poverty line is slightly lower than the international poverty line.

Using the international poverty line shows that around 43.5 per cent of the population lives in poverty in 2011/12. This increase of around 15 percentage points, compared to the national poverty rate of 28.2 percent, is explained by the clustering of the population around the poverty line the international standard includes people considered just above the line using the national standard. Tanzania is in the early stages of the demographic transition.

With high fertility of around five births per women and the decline of mortality, the momentum of high population growth is expected to continue in the coming years.

The country could gain from a demographic dividend—meaning a large working-age population starting in 2020-30, but the dependency ratio (the proportion of children below 14 years old and elderly above 65 years in the household) will remain much higher than the levels achieved in East Asia 30 years ago. High fertility may slow poverty reduction and undermine pro-poor growth prospects.

The rapid population growth will continue to weigh heavily on the country’s future growth and its capacity to reduce poverty. At the household level, families with large number of children have limited capacity to reduce poverty best way to reduce population growth and accelerate demographic change is by slowing down fertility.



Empowering women through education and employment support, as well as with family planning services, would help to reduce fertility and stimulate per capita economic growth.

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