DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES AND POVERTY REDUCTION INITIATIVES: ANALYTICAL DISCUSSION WITH APPLICATIONS TO TANZANIA

  Fidelis Mtatifikolo^* and Robert Mabele*

ABSTRACT: This paper is about development strategies and poverty reduction initiatives, using Tanzania as a case study. Poverty is defined and operationalised in the global context, with poverty in Africa being characterised as "mass poverty". In Tanzania, poverty is rampant and largely rural even though the urban areas are not as such rich. Urban poverty is worse in smaller towns than in the capital, Dar es Salaam.

Current poverty reduction initiatives distinguish between strategic and operational-level efforts. Regarding strategic efforts, Tanzania has had explicit policies in the recent Reform Programme and Rolling Plans. Operational-level initiatives see combined interventions, at grassroots level, of the Government, the Donor Community and the NGOs.

Recommendations emphasise continuity and consolidation of processes in which the poor themselves are the primary actors. Participatory methods to poverty assessment and poverty reduction should guide policy and practice.

1. INTRODUCTION: THE CONCEPT OF POVERTY AND ITS MEASUREMENT

1.1 Prelude and Report Outline

This paper is about Development Strategies for Poverty Alleviation in general, with a focus on Tanzania. An assessment is done on the existence and extent of poverty alleviation initiatives globally and in the country, with special focus on the poor `communities', defined to include those considered vulnerable' to sudden shocks in the socio-economic system. In the global nomenclature, and as demonstrated in Tanzania, these include children, youth, women, the aged and the disabled.

Five sections make up the paper. This introductory section discusses the notion of poverty, identification of the poor and measurement of poverty, as practised globally and with specific reference to Tanzania. Section two is about Development Strategies and Poverty in Tanzania, covering the scoio-economic environment, recent trends and the poverty profile of the country. The third section covers the logic and content of poverty alleviation, addressing the analytical and conceptual framework and the strategic, as well as the operational initiatives for poverty reduction. Section Four is about the poverty reduction initiatives in Tanzania, covering both the policy (macro) and the operational (meso/micro) levels. Synthesis and conclusions follow in the fifth section.

1.2 The Notion of Poverty and Global Poverty Patterns

Poverty has been a pervasive and growing threat to humanity. As we approach the 21^st century already more than one billion people in the world, most of whom go hungry, live in abject poverty. In Africa, in particular, a large proportion of people (the majority of whom are women) has very limited access to income, resources, education, health care and nutrition. In 1995 (March 6-12), the first World Summit on Social Development (WSSD) was organised in Copenhagen, Denmark, "to recognise the significance of social development and human well being for all and to give these goals the highest priority both now and into the twenty-first century". In the same year, the UNDP's policy paper, "Poverty Eradication: A Policy Framework for Country Strategies", was released, while the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development followed up on the deliberations and recommendations of WSSD with the document "After the Social Summit: Implementing the Programme of Action". A Regional (Africa) Conference had been held in January 1994 in Addis Ababa and an "Action Agenda for Human and Social Development" was developed for Africa. Viewing poverty as a global issue is reflected in these initiatives.

Africa's poverty is said to be mass poverty (of the absolute kind mainly, and less so of the relative kind) requiring more encompassing operational definitions and monitoring instruments with the aim of designing intervention initiatives. In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), 35 of the 46 countries were classified in 1995 as least developed, with a high prevalence of poverty. The UNDP Human Development Report (1995) listed 44% of SSA population as having no access to health services, 57% as being without safe water, and 64% without access to sanitary facilities. The Human Development Index was high for only 2, and medium for 9. 35 countries had a low HDI, ranked from 129 to 174 in the global ranking scale, which ranked each country from 1 to 174.¹

A reasonable definition characterises a poor person as one whose "standard of living falls below a minimum socially acceptable level". This definition accommodates basic needs, some acceptable social thresholds, norms and traditions. It also reflects the view about poverty which relates to the capacity to be able to participate in all of the activities of a community on average. However, the concept is operationally difficult.

One view uses the notion of deprivation whereby poverty is defined as enforced lack (deprivation) of material resources of certain duration and to such an extent that participation in normal activities and possession of amenities and living conditions which are customary, or at least widely encouraged or approved in society, becomes impossible or very limited. Another approach uses basic needs, especially along the nutritional front, where there is some agreement that nutritional requirements vary less across time and societies. This operational definition of poverty may appear too narrow. True, "man does not live by bread alone!" but without bread man cannot live at all! On this there is no significant controversy. Indeed, the other attributes of poverty such as bad health, ignorance and even lack of self-esteem are, by and large, essentially related to one's lack of access to basic commodities, notably food.

Operationally, thus, it is common practice to specify minimum requirements for both food and non-food items and then to calculate the needed income for current acquisition (the income becomes the poverty line). If the food share is generally known, then this will provide the benchmark expenditure. To obtain the poverty line this minimum food expenditure is "grossed up" by an appropriate factor to accommodate non-food requirements.

1.3 Poverty Measurement

Poverty measurements use various concepts of both primary and secondary incomes, broadly defined. Primary incomes accrue in the form of primary claims on resources, which arise directly out of the productive process of work and accumulation. These include results of the labour process (employment - self or hired), returns on rental property and from investments or productive assets. Secondary incomes are a result of the transfer and social actions or interventions which empower the recipients to actively engage in productive work (e.g. investments in education, health, food security, sanitary facilities and environmental protection).

The measurement of poverty (magnitude, prevalence, intensity, severity and persistence) is the starting point for any logical step to intervention for purposes of its eradication. This in theory starts off with defining a poverty line, which divides the poor, and non-poor. The concept (poverty line) is elusive and there still exists a significant debate on what this measure should be "stating" for operational and policy purposes.²

In spite of the rich literature on poverty indices, empirical work has generally used indices which at most give the aggregate incidence and aggregate intensity of poverty. The "Head Count Ratio" index, measuring the incidence, is a simple proportion of the population whose income is below the poverty threshold or poverty line. This measure makes no distinction between the poor who may be close to the poverty line and those who may have no income at all (the really destitute, paupers and survivalists). This index is insensitive to a decrease in the incomes of the poor, to income transfer among the poor and from the poor to the rich, and also to the degree of poverty. The other index uses the notion of the Poverty Gap. The Poverty Gap is defined as the average gap between the actual income of the poor and the poverty threshold as a proportion of that threshold. One composite index defined by the simple product of the head count and poverty gap indices, measures incidence and intensity.

The Head Count Ratio remains the most commonly used in large-scale (national/regional) studies which lack specific details necessary and relevant for the other indices. Thus using such a concept the World Bank estimated that 1.133 billion people in the world were living below the poverty line in 1990. Whereas the overall incidence of poverty was estimated to have fallen from 30.5% in 1985 to 29.7% in 1990, the absolute number of the poor increased. If the trends are to continue by the turn of the century there will be 1.3 billion poor. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) both incidence and absolute numbers of the poor are likely to increase (under the assumption of economic growth at no more than 3.3% per annum).³

2. DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES AND POVERTY: TANZANIA

2.1 Summary of Policies, Practices and Experiences

Tanzania is one of only a few SSA countries that have had prolonged stability which, from the mid-1960s to at least the late 1970s, was guided by a clear national ideology. In 1967, the Arusha Declaration created a national ideology: the Policy of Socialism and Self-Reliance, whose main objectives were to build an egalitarian, self-reliant, socialist economy in the medium to long term. In addition to the creation of a national ideology, the Declaration was justified on many grounds, such as the need for a strong public sector to lead the economy in view of the slow private sector initiatives, and the perceived increase in inequality and poverty (taking a racial tone also, in which the `natives' were the more disadvantaged). Socialism was expected to address the question of poverty and inequality squarely.

Deliberate policies under Arusha included the creation of a command economy in state hands, industrial re-orientation toward the Basic Industry Strategy, reorganisation of agriculture and marketing, and population resettlement; all with definite, if still unresearched, implications on poverty. The process of crowding out private sector economic initiatives followed, and it was facilitated by at least six instruments, namely:

(1) central control of investment planning and restrictive codes on private sector investors;

(2) confinement policy, especially at wholesale and import-export levels for basic commodities;

(3) price control;

(4) wage and salary policies for the public and private sector;

(5) credit rationing and control of financial instruments; and

(6) administrative allocation of foreign exchange.⁴

The 1970s were characterised as the decade of shocks and crises. By the end of the decade Tanzania was facing its gravest crisis, and it had to adjust (World Bank, 1984; Ndulu, 1994). The documented chronology of events is as follows:

· Budget Mini-Crisis 1971-72;

· First world oil shock 1973-74;

· Major drought 1974-76;

· Disruption of the economy by villagisation, 1974-76;

· Break-up of the EAC 1977;

· Second oil shock 1978-79;

· War with Uganda 1979-80, and

· World recession 1979-82 depressing export prices for Tanzania exports while raising import prices.

The short-lived coffee price boom of 1976-77 was not sufficient to help bring about any significant recovery.⁵

The first attempt to come to grips with the crises took the form of a short term programme (NESP: 1980-82) that tried to align domestic demand with supply through severe curtailment in demand, largely affecting the soft sectors. A subsequent medium-term SAP was tried 1983-85, but without success as it did not attract donor support, which at the time was indispensable (as is now) for any credible national programme to work in Tanzania.

The first programme to run from 1986/87 to 1988/89 was called Economic Recovery Programme, a typical first generation growth-oriented programme with the objectives of: increasing food and export production, rehabilitation of physical infrastructure, enhanced utilisation of industrial capacity, and the restoration of internal and external balances. The second programme, which ran from 1989/90-1991-92, was code-named Economic and Social Action Programme (ESAP); it was expected to bring in the "social dimension" in the adjustment (noted as the vintage of the second generation). In addition to the above objectives of the ERP, ESAP added the objective of `strengthening social service delivery'. In the first Rolling Plan (1993), the objectives were restated in the form of more precise targets: raising GDP real growth to 5% per annum, reducing inflation to less than 10%, restoring internal and external balances in the economy, and improving social sector service delivery. The current thinking and official policy objectives are embodied in the Rolling Plan. It reflects on the latest vintage of adjustment programme designs, which call for "fundamental socio-economic and institutional transformation".

2.2 Summary of the Recent Verdict on `Development', Poverty and Inequality in Tanzania: Secondary Data

Indicators of "development", broadly defined, cover economic growth indicators, distribution indicators and social sector indicators. The Human Development Index (HDI) for Tanzania has been low and ranking `poor' in recent years (See UNDP's World Development Report, Annual, 1992 issue). The Table below is indicative of recent trends in Tanzania.

Table 1. Tanzania: Human Development Measures

Variable	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996
Tanzania's HDI	0.268	0.270	0.306	0.364	0.364
Tanzania's Ranking	126	138	148	147	144
Tanzania's GDP per capita ($)	557	572	570	620	630
Tanzania's GDP per capita Ranking	158	172	170	168	170

Source: Compiled from Likwelile, 1997: 20, Table 4.1

In the World Bank Development Report's World Development Indicators, Tanzania has consistently been ranked among the world's top four poorest countries since 1990 (based on GNP). The verdict is that human development is not only stagnating but also falling in relation to world standards. This poses a real challenge to the development programmes (currently embodied in the reform processes as described in the Rolling Plan).

The World Bank study (1993) and other more recent reports on poverty in Tanzania have come to the following conclusions: (1) that poverty is largely a rural phenomenon; (2) that there had been a significant decline in the incidence of aggregate poverty between 1983 and 1994; and (3) that even though the incidence was declining, the magnitude (i.e., the number of the poor) was increasing. It is further revealed that there has been a marked deterioration in the coverage and quality of public social services, particularly in the rural areas. The sweet that poverty is declining thus has to be gauged against the negative trends in social services. Furthermore, there is evidence also that inequality was rising in the early 90s (World Bank, 1993). The Gini Coefficient as an income distribution measurement index rose from 0.39 in 1969 to 0.44 in 1976/77, and then to 0.57 in 1990/91.

2.3 Poverty and Poverty Profile in Tanzania

The World Bank has defined poverty and extreme poverty as denoting those living on less than a real purchasing power parity measurement of USD 1 per day (or about TShs 15,000 per month at 1993/94 prices in Tanzania), and USD 0.75 per day (or Tshs. 11,250 per month), respectively for Tanzania (UNDP, 1995). Using this definition it is noted that in Tanzania poverty is largely a rural phenomenon. The poor represented, in the early to mid-1990s, about 59% of all rural households and 39% of urban households excluding Dar es Salaam, where the poor represented about 9% of all households. Rural villages accounted for 90% of those living in extreme poverty.

The report above (UNDP, 1995) shows that there was a significant decline (of 29 percent on the average) in the incidence of poverty between 1983 and 1991. For example, in 1983 about 54% of the total population was living below the poverty line. In 1991, this figure had declined to 41.8% (a 23% decline). As for extreme poverty, 65% of the poor were below the extreme poverty line in 1983. This figure declined to 42% in 1991 (a 35% fall). In 1983 about 11 million people were living in poverty. This figure fell to about 9 million in 1991 (even though total population had risen significantly). These magnitudes are said to have risen since then.

At a workshop organised by the Government of Tanzania and the World Bank on Socio-Economic Growth and Poverty Alleviation in Tanzania (May 14-20; 1995; Arusha Tanzania), further evidence was provided (see Ferreira and Goodhart; 1995) to show that poverty declined steadily not only between 1983 and 1991 but also between 1991 and 1993. Despite this, there were still some typical tendencies: that poverty still remained a largely rural phenomenon and that most urban areas had a worse incidence than Dar es Salaam. Other independent but tentative estimates on poverty were given for 1994, which showed that 42.7% of the population in Mainland Tanzania, 49.7 in rural Tanzania, 24.4% in other urban towns, and 2.9% in Dar es Salaam were living in poverty, again revealing a pattern consistent with previous estimates.

2.4 Other Dimensions of Poverty: The Regional Context

The World Bank study cited above gives the following profile of the extent of poverty, under the rural-urban divide.

Table 2. The Extent of Poverty in Tanzania

Source: World Bank, 1993

In Table 2, poverty is seen to be a mainly rural phenomenon. Slightly over 59 percent of rural households were poor compared to 39 percent of non-Dar es Salaam and 5 percent of Dar es Salaam households. The last column of the table measures the severity of poverty. The depth of poverty measures the level of expenditure required to bring the expenditure of the poor (in adult equivalent terms) up to the poverty line. Thus to bring the rural households up to the poverty line would require supplements equivalent to 30 percent of the poverty line expenditure. This is twice as much as what would be required to bring the non-DSM urban population up to the poverty line.

The incidence of poverty in the regions is associated with low productivity in agriculture. Regions with low rainfall, poor soils, poor road infrastructure and long distance to markets have a high incidence of poverty compared with better off regions. Table 3 below shows regional differences in poverty and income according to studies done in the early 1990s. Regions like Kilimangaro, Kagera, Arusha and Mara had less than 40 percent of their population below the poverty line. The worst regions were Lindi and Shinyanga, with over 90 percent of their population with adjusted adult equivalent incomes below the poverty line.

Table 3. Regional Characteristics of Population, Income, Poverty, Roads and Population Density

Table 3 (continued). Regional Characteristics of Population, Income, Poverty, Roads and Population Density

Source: World Bank Report No. 12294 AT, July 1994 (cited in Amani, 1996).

Income levels are determined mainly by a combination of factors including access to product and factor markets and availability of land of good agricultural potential. Moreover, there is no direct correlation between farm size and income levels. For instance, Kilimangaro is the most densely populated region with 1786 inhabitants per square kilometre of good potential land. Lindi has only 124 inhabitants per square kilometre. However, the percentage of the population below the poverty line is 31 percent in Kilimangaro compared to 91 percent in Lindi. Also, a study of basic needs conducted by the ILO in Kilimangaro found that the difference in acreage between farmers much alone and these much below the poverty line was less than 3 times; in terms of incomes, however, they varied by a factor of about 9 (ILO, 1981 cited in Amani, 1996). The difference in income depends, to a large extent, on what is grown (food vis-à-vis cash crops), use of modern agricultural inputs, and access to markets. Access to markets depends on the quality and density of roads as well as the distance to markets. The World Bank (1994) has concluded that over 50 percent of the variation in poverty across regions is explained by the road density/agricultural potential variable. Hence, the existence of a dense rural road network on productive agro-ecological areas is a necessary pre-condition to rural income growth and poverty reduction.

3. POVERTY ALLEVIATION INITIATIVES LOGIC CONTENT AND STRATEGIES

3.1 The Notion of Poverty in Welfare Assessments

Hartwell (1972) defined Economics as the study of poverty, because the structure, efficiency and growth of production - the heart of economic science - affect, and are in turn affected by the distribution of consumer goods between the poor and the non-poor. All branches of economic science - welfare economics, trade, development, agricultural economics, public finance, etc. - are thus in the final analysis related to poverty. Indeed since the classical economists - Smith, Ricardo, etc., the centrality of poverty eradication in economic theory and economic analysis has formed the core of economic policy. This continues to be formalised by the current generation of economists (neo-classicists?).

With most developing countries bent on implementing structural adjustment programmes, the debate about the relationship between growth and poverty has once again intensified. Before the publication of Kuznet's work in 1955, it was commonly believed that the benefits of growth could be expected to trickle down to the poor more or less automatically, and hence growth was believed to be always accompanied by reduced poverty. The Kuznet Hypothesis stated that during the initial stages of growth, inequality would tend to increase before starting to decline. The work of Ahluwalia and others on "redistribution with growth" sought to emphasise, from a policy perspective, the importance of interventionist measures needed to bring about equity during the initial stages of growth. In more recent echoes in analytical literature it is being argued that the present growth models are not adequate in analysing the implications of growth on equity unless they are joint growth-and-redistribution models.

Three generations of adjustment programmes can be identified, especially when the social dimensions are invoke from the so-called Growth SAPs where the emphasis was overwhelmingly on economic growth and the revival of productive activities (Poverty alleviation and equity were expected under the "trickle down" process, and Social Programmes were marginalised), to the Growth-with-Equity SAPs, following the cries for "adjustment with a human face" (Safety Nets and Social Programmes for the poor were encouraged). The third, and most current one, is that of institutional reforms and transformation. The catchy phrase is "Development with Inclusion", meaning that the poor are also integrated in the socio-economic mainstream. The need for safety nets at this phase is expected to decline and ultimately disappear. The standard content of the new adjustment programmes is coined in two broad phrases: Unleashing Markets and Reforming the Public Sector. ⁶

The conceptual framework for linking policies to poverty and inequality reduction under adjustment processes has evolved through the same processes, from an earlier over-emphasis on trickle-down processes to the current need for explicit interventionist policies on growth and redistribution. Poverty eradication involves assisting the poor to have a better command of production inputs so that they can increase output and productivity.

3.2 The Conceptual Framework for Analysis of Government Economic Programmes and Interventions for Poverty Reduction

The primary objective of any credible government programme in the economy is to achieve and maintain a sustainable external and internal balance. Processes to reach this primary objective depend on the specific circumstances of the country and the sources (actual or potential) of the external and internal imbalances, the typical ones being some earlier expansionary macroeconomic policies and deterioration of external terms of trade.

The conceptual framework for analysis of such interventions and programmes works through the domestic policy environment, distinguishing between fiscal (budgetary) and non-fiscal (autonomous, non-budgetary) policies used at macro level to address the unsustainable external and internal imbalances. The policies are used for the purpose of addressing, in turn, the three intermittent goals used to reach the primary objective mentioned above, namely: restraining or controlling aggregate demand domestically, promoting supply, and improving economic efficiency. These intermediate goals are not mutually exclusive. It is generally true that measures meant to address one goal may also do for the other goals: it is all a question of relative emphasis, which may be dictated by the specific circumstances of the time and place.

The practical fiscal tools include:

· government expenditure measures (personnel emoluments, administrative technologies, subsidies for recurrent spending, and new investments for capital expenditure);

· revenue measures (direct taxes on incomes, profits and property, indirect taxes on goods and services, taxes on international trade, non-tax revenues, revenue administration and deficit financing, especially through government borrowing).

On the other hand, the non-fiscal policy tools are measures in money and credit, price policy, labour market polices, exchange rate policies, foreign trade/transactions polices, and polices on uncultured sectors (mainly the informal and "survival" sectors in rural and urban areas).

The primary linkage of government interventions and programme to poverty and distribution issues is through these instruments' (fiscal and non-fiscal) influences on:

· aggregate domestic demand (especially the goods commonly consumed by the poor);

· aggregate domestic supply (especially in the poor population's supply responsiveness to take advantage of new incentive systems brought in by adjustment policies);

· the overall price level (in particular the effect on inflationary forces that harm the poor disproportionately);

· the composition of demand and supply, and

· relative prices (the terms of trade facing the poor).

Poverty eradication involves assisting the poor to have a better command of production inputs so that they can increase output and productivity, and participate in, and benefit from the mainstream of adjustment process in the economy. A development strategy that does not spell out in detail how this is going to be done cannot claim to be a poverty-oriented development strategy.

3.3 Poverty Reduction Initiatives under Adjustment: The Global Framework

Analytical frameworks under which to organise the discussion on poverty reduction through adjustment appear in various literatures and some summary issues are highlighted here. The main instrument for poverty eradication is enabling these social groups (poor and vulnerable) to have access to primary and secondary incomes as defined earlier. In as far as the poor (and vulnerable) are economically active, a potential exists for raising their primary incomes through their direct involvement in the processes of reform and adjustment. A major guiding principle is thus to increase the productive capacity of the poor to the greatest extent. Five broad approaches to such a policy can be singled out:

1. Increasing the poor and vulnerable group's access to productive assets (including credit, grants, commodity aid, land, livestock, etc.) that are both affordable and productive.

2. Raising the returns on assets to which the poor have access. For most poor people their main productive asset is their labour. Raising their skills, employment opportunities and wages will go a long way towards reducing poverty. Where the poor own some land, measures to raise land productivity and producer prices are indispensable.

3. Promoting employment opportunities. This is necessary since public sectors are shrinking globally as part of the economic reforms. The private and informal sectors form the ultimate vent. Sometimes temporary public works programmes that pay less than the market wage are credited with higher labour absorption.

4. Investing in human capital by providing the poor sufficient and relevant quality education, health, nutrition and food security. This helps to provide for a healthy, literate and energetic "poor" who can be integrated into the economic and social mainstream as opportunities arise.

5. Empowering the poor to expand their economic and social participation, and supplementing their resources and initiatives with adequate and timely transfers in the interim. Such transfers may be in the form of soft loans or grants. Support to the soft sectors (education, health, food and nutrition) is also taken as part of supplementing incomes, especially of the poor.

The first four approaches address primary incomes (current and future) whereas the last one covers aspects of secondary incomes (transfers).

The general framework above has been discussed repeatedly in the literature, with varying operational emphasis over time and space. In recent years, there have even been attempts to distinguish between strategic and operational initiatives for poverty eradication, to emphasise its global and macro-macro character. The strategic or policy-level initiatives have concentrated on creating an enabling environment through:

(a) Setting national goals and targets for poverty elimination

(b) Social mobilisation for participation and creation of partnerships

(c) Policy and institutional reform and co-ordination, and

(d) Mobilising resources internally and invitation to donor participation.

On the other hand, the operational-level priorities for anti-poverty interventions have centred around the following:

(a) Empowering people for self-reliance: Increasing organisation and participation of people in decision-making and in developing capacities at all levels;

(b) Enhancing household food security: Measures to promote subsistence farming and production of traditional crops, improved land tenure, improved access to credit, inputs, research and extension services;

(c) Improving access to basic infrastructure and social services: Access to primary health care, to basic education - both formal and non-formal education with special emphasis on skill development, access to shelter, water and sanitation, and access to controls on HIV/AIDS and other epidemics;

(d) Promoting job creation and sustainable livelihoods: Focus on training, skills creation and productivity-enhancing programme, in smallholder agriculture, self-employment, informal sector activities, small-scale and micro-enterprises and co-operatives;

(e) Ensuring equitable access to credit and productive assets: Easier access to appropriate technologies and know-how, to new seeds and crop varieties, existing formal and informal community networks such as money shops, community banks, revolving funds and other community-based micro-credit schemes), and

(f) Expanding social protection for vulnerable people: Social safety nets such as food subsidies, supplementary feeding, food-for-work, and guaranteed employment programme for the unemployed, the elderly, and the disabled, particularly in times of distress, famines, natural disasters, and civil violence.

These, in their totality, provide the yardsticks for gauging specific country initiatives. Such initiatives in Tanzania are discussed next.

4. POVERTY ALLEVIATION INITIATIVES IN TANZANIA

4.1 Recent Policy Efforts

The main and more recent practical efforts to rethink the country's strategy on the poverty front in Tanzania are traceable to: 1) the initiatives under the Economic and Social Action Programme (ESAP, also called ERP), 1989/90 - 1991/92; 2) its appendage, the Priority Social Action Programme (PSAP). The Social Dimensions of Adjustment (SDA) project was initiated by the government through support from UNDP/WB, which had been supporting similar projects in other SSA countries. By the 1992, count there were about 20 such projects in SSA alone. The Tanzania SDA project was formalised in 1989/90.

Four components formed SDA-Tanzania. Of these, two are particularly appealing in the discussion of poverty eradication, namely the Research and Policy Studies Programme component and the Social Action Programme component. The former component (RPSP) identified five clusters or themes around which such studies would concentrate, namely:

· Employment, Incomes and Food Security

· Provision of, and access to, public services

· Socio-economic patterns of behaviour of vulnerable groups and areas

· Institutional aspects of macro-economic policy reform and socio-economic modelling.

The main objectives of the Social Action Programme (SDA) component of SDA-Tanzania were singled out as follows:

(a) to assist the government to mobilise resources for PSAP projects by financing consultancy services to prepare project documentation required by potential funders;

(b) to provide financing for urgently needed small-scale interventions initiated by grassroots groups and other NGOs;

(c) to fund pilot projects intended to guide large-scale interventions aimed at improving income generating capabilities and access to social services by the poor, and

(d) to facilitate the implementation and co-ordination of the PSAP (mainly through the provision of national consultancy services).

The initial instrument of SAP was some seed fund called the Priority Action Fund, initially a budget of USD 4.25 million (out of 11 million total SDA budget), to first finance actions relating to compilation of the necessary information of PSAP projects (0.25 mill. USD) and community-based pilot projects (4 mill. USD).

By 1994 SDA was being phased out, gradually to be taken over by another initiative, as documented below. Suffice it to say that apart from the studies, nothing much was achieved. The money pledged by donors did not come, and the government's own revenues were in such a bad shape as to preclude any possibility of embarking on a self-financing of the SDA programme.

4.2 The Current Thinking and Efforts

The most current thinking in government is reflected in the Rolling Plan cited earlier. It states as follows under its "Fundamental Principles and Goals of the Government":

The Government's basic development objective is to improve the welfare of its people through a sustained improvement in their living standards. Socio-economic development is only meaningful if it encompasses the majority of the population, both as participants in bringing it about as well as its beneficiaries. Because mass poverty, ignorance and disease limit full and active participation of the Tanzanian majority in the development process, their alleviation is the ultimate target for development Policy (emphasis added).⁷

The macro principles are thus clear and they repeat the note often cited by Tanzania about the three "enemies": ignorance, disease and poverty. The last two are currently addressed by the Social Sector Strategy developed in recent years and discussed in the May 1995 Arusha Workshop cited earlier.

The current effort against poverty is along the lines of the UNDP's Poverty Eradication: A Policy Framework for Country Strategies (1995). In developing a strategy, it capitalises on two factors: (a) the "maturity" and expiration in 1994/95 of the SDA Project, and (b) the significant inputs generated by the expiring project and other independent efforts (e.g. WSSD and the Africa Regional Conference cited earlier). The initiatives under SDA-Tanzania are earmarked to be expanded and strengthened under the Poverty Eradication Division in the Vice President's Office. The proposed programme is to design and implement specific strategies and actions involving selected local governments, private sectors, NGOs, Civil Societies as well as the Donor Community within a framework initially agreed upon with UNDP via a URT-ante Project outlined below.

In September 1995, the Tanzania government signed an agreement with UNDP for a UNDP Grant of about USD 703,000 to finance an 18-month project titled Enhancement of the National Capacity to Co-ordinate Poverty Eradication Initiatives (Project Number URT/95/007). The primary function of the project was Capacity Building and the government would be the Executing Agency. The basic objectives of the project were to establish a Poverty Eradication Division in the government structure, with a strengthened and expanded mandate in the Vice- President's Office. During the project's life, the division would also be expected to formulate the National Policy, Strategy and Programme for Poverty Eradication.

4.3 Poverty Eradication and the Target Groups

Poverty eradication refers to lifting people out of poverty. Typically two approaches are suggeste eradication through growth and eradication through redistribution. The first approach has been characterised by the conspicuous failures of the so-called "trickle-down" processes, whereas the latter continues to be tried by various efforts of perfect and imperfect targeting. The other approach has been, as noted, through special projects like the Social Dimensions of Adjustment (SDA) projects, which have been cited for no less than 20-odd SSA countries, all supported mainly by, WB/UNDP, and other initiatives.

One conspicuous finding on the poverty front in Tanzania has been the identification of some vulnerable groups (potential or actual) who are said to be critically susceptible to shocks which render them easy targets to join the `poverty club', now widely documented in analytical literature even for other countries. These are:

(a) The youth: because the labour market for them is uncertain and they are generally still dependent, on parents or guardians;

(b) Children: tenderness, dependency and lack of own income sources make them vulnerable;

(c) Women: in many societies where the "bread-earners" are men, women are necessarily dependent. Some traditions (still strong in Tanzania) deny women ownership of some critical productive assets such as land.

(d) The age these would generally be living on fixed incomes (if they were employed in their youth) and on assets which may be of low yield;

(e) Others: include disabled and wage earners in risky public sector jobs or in formal sectors that are non-yielding. Low returns, lack of credible public support and business insecurity render such groups vulnerable.

It is generally accepted that from a policy perspectiv, primary interest in society should be in the well-being of the poorest members. A general consensus on this is easy and for Tanzania these groups are some of the poorest, the weakest and the most vulnerable.

4.4 Direct Initiatives: Donors, NGOs and (Trust) Funds

During the period of active economic adjustment in Tanzania over the past two decades, a number of studies have been done as part of the process of identifying the poor, their livelihood patterns, their coping mechanisms, as well as their perceptions of what should be done to deal with poverty. Studies using participatory assessments and rapid appraisal methods have been particularly popular. However, other studies have used traditional methods, and in their totality they have been able to provide important information on poverty in Tanzania. We have noted the World Bank initiatives as one set. Others include the informal labour surveys. Yet others have been more localised (district level mainly, like the Kilosa and Ulanga studies cited in Amani (1996).⁸

Donors, the NGO Movement and other actors have used the results of such studies to prepare or intervene in poverty alleviation initiatives. The majority of such interventions are in specific income generating activities, and the two groups, women and youth, have almost always been the targets. Wangwe (1996) compiled recent initiatives regarding specific projects, the beneficiaries, the source of funding, the executing agencies (for Donor/Govt projects) and specific remarks on operations.⁹ The most comprehensive scheme to date is a programme by donors and the government for generating income (called the National Income Generation Programme, NIGP), which is geared toward strengthening NGOs, the private sector and individual private actors through a credit worth 100 million USD over five years initially. Twenty to thirty projects are earmarked under the first phase (NGO strengthening is already under way under the umbrella NGO Development and Training Initiative).

Many other initiatives are documented, including such NGOs as the Promotion of Rural Initiatives and Development Enterprises (PRIDE) Tanzania, the Tanzania Youth Development and Employment Foundation (TYDEF), and various specific Trust Funds (Presidential Trust Fund for Self-Reliance, the National Enterprises Development Fund, the Women Development Fund, the Community Development Trust Fund, and other donor funds like UNIFEM Fund for women, OXFAM-UK, and ILO/AGIFUND). Bilateral donors active in poverty alleviation projects include Australia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Canada, the UK and the USA. Almost all UN agencies support some poverty alleviation initiatives either directly through support for primary income generating activities or support for social sectors, food security and welfare. The government, the local financial institutions, the Small Industry Development Organisation (SIDO), as well as the private business sector (especially the Industrial Promotion Programme - IPP) are all active in the fight against poverty.

It is clear from the above that there are initiatives at both the strategic and the operational levels in the fight against poverty in Tanzania.

5. SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 Brief Summary of Findings

The four sections above have outlined and discussed the notion and measurement of poverty and the initiatives in poverty alleviation in Tanzania at both the policy or strategic, as well as the operational levels. A conceptual framework for the fight against poverty has also been highlighted. This section summarises the main findings and offers some recommendations on developing a policy and operational framework for consolidating the fight against poverty in Tanzania.

The survey provides some indicative data and evidence on the scale of poverty in Tanzania between the mid-80s and the mid-90s. Many efforts are cited and they all point to some diminished poverty as measured by aggregate variables in the period. Poverty remains largely a rural phenomenon, and in comparison with other urban areas, DSM does not fare worse (as all evidence points to a lower poverty incidence in Dar es Salaam than in the other urban areas).

It is observed that government initiative in poverty eradication in the more recent decades is directly linked to the adjustment process, especially since the "human dimensions" notion began to attract interest in policy and practice. Thus, with ESAP and the Rolling Plan, such concepts have been translated into programmes of intent and practice. The conceptual framework for poverty reduction addresses five approaches to the scheme: increasing access to productive assets for the poor, raising returns on such assets, promoting employment opportunities, investing in human capital, and empowering the poor to expand their economic and social participation while supplementing their resources and initiatives with adequate and timely transfers in the interim. The more recent initiatives even go as far as distinguishing between policy and operational efforts in the fight against poverty, reflecting the universal `thinking' that poverty is currently a `global' problem, requiring both macro and micro initiatives.

The practical policy evolution in poverty eradication in Tanzania is traceable to ESAP (1989/90-91/92), initially a UNDP-supported project (The SDA). As SDA matured in 1994, the government decided to institutionalise poverty eradication in its comprehensive rolling planning and forward budgeting. A division responsible for multi-sectoral and multi-institutional linkage for poverty eradication has been established in the vice-president's Office, which in effect will be strengthening the institutional setting for poverty-focused operations.

There has been a significant involvement of the donors directly and through the NGO movement to reach the poor and facilitate poverty eradication in Tanzania. Many of these efforts are traceable mainly to the period of active adjustment process, indicating that there may have been evidence that such adjustment would require deliberate and direct initiatives to reach the poor, since they were not adequately covered by adjustment.

5.2 Recommendations on the Next Steps

The following six elements of a poverty assessment and reduction programme at community level are proposed and recommended for institutionalisation:

(a) periodic exploration of local conceptions and indicators of poverty, vulnerability, deprivation and powerlessness in the relevant communities. Traditions, taboos, religion and the government laws and legislation have a role to play, and to the extent that these do change over time it is imperative that such explorations should be a continuous exercise.

(b) investigating what people in such communities see as the main concerns and problems (stress and advantages analysis) in their lives at present and how these have changed over time (and likely to be in future);

(c) exploring livelihoods by gender, and gender linkages to "household" property, wealth and other assets with regard to ownership, access/use and "inheritance" when households break up (death of spouse or separation). This gender analysis should include the vulnerability or powerlessness of individuals relative to the household.

(d) investigating the coping mechanisms adopted by individuals and poor households, formally through the savings-investment processes and informally through some safety nets and semi-institutional arrangements in the wake of economic and social hardships;

(e) isolating for each community what the poor themselves see as the most effective actions for poverty reduction which can be taken at individual, community and government (strategy/policy) levels;

(f) initiating and carrying out self-help development activities which have the largest immediate and future impact on poverty reduction by drawing on the optimal use of local (and external) knowledge, resources and skills.

Strategic and policy-level initiatives (mainly at the macro level) should concentrate on designing efficient budgetary and other measures that aim at reducing societal poverty to its lowest level, given the resource that can be mobilised.

NOTES

¹ Thus poverty in Africa is seen as a process whereby almost 80% of the population is surviving at the daily subsistence local dietary requirement; housed in squatter-type shelters; with a bare minimum of protective clothing; without the means to acquire productive assets; and with very low organisational capabilities and participatory role; and inadequate endowment of energy supplies for productive and other use (Foday, 1995). In such an environment the magnitude of ignorance and dependency and the prevalence of diseases precludes the "poor" from effectively responding to the demands of, and participation in, the economic, social and political life of their societies. In Africa the average life expectancy at birth is around 50 years, compared with 62 for all developing countries and 76 for industrial countries.

² Measures used for poverty are considered superior if they satisfy some basic criteria. These criteria try to address questions such as: who the poor are; how poor they are; what happens when "transactions and transfers" occur among the poor; what happens when transfers involve the rich or some becoming non-poor; and the implications for public and other interventions on the various strata within the "poverty club" [for instance, a transfer to the poorest segment is seen to contribute more to reduction of poverty than such a transfer to the marginally poor].

³ The often-cited reasons for the almost universal susceptibility to poverty (and its continuation) by rural populations in SSA include (i) policies and institutional arrangements that discriminate against the poor and exclude them from full integration in development processes; (ii) population growth and unsustainable humanity-environment balances; (iii) political and civil strife; and (iv) the marginalisation of women, who are the backbone of rural economies. Other reasons are exogenous developments in the world economy and taxation and expenditure policies of governments and donors (which also affect poverty in urban areas).

⁴ The response of the private sector in the wake of such a squeeze, and especially after other exogenous influences had driven the sector to mere survival, has been explained in terms of: (1) refuge to the informal sector, (2) fast growth of informal financial markets and the growth of parallel markets for Forex (3) fast growth of the Subterranean economy and (4) open sabotage of the state sector through low productivity, corruption, rent-seeking and embezzlement of public funds (see Mtatifikolo, 1995, 1998).

⁵ Documentation on the budgetary and economic costs of these various shocks is scanty (documentation in World Bank, 1984, Bagachwa et al, 1992, and Mtatifikolo, 1998). The greater lack is the linkage of such shocks to poverty and inequality trends in the country for the period under review.

⁶ Adjustment programmes have been judged on the following criteria; (1) the extent of revival and sustenance of economic growth, (2) the degree of price stability and inflation control, (3) the checks on budgetary imbalances, (4) the extent of increase in exports and competitiveness, (5) the effective control over BOP and Debt problems, and (6) the social dimensions impact, especially in reducing poverty and inequality.

⁷ Further, on the same page an added note: "Human Development is a key element in the economic and social development process. In order, therefore, to achieve and sustain development it is crucial to ensure that the education/training, health and vitality of the people are well taken care of for their effective participation in the development process. In addition, Population Policy has to be given its proper perspective so as to ensure that economic growth is advancing at a higher rate than that of population. This will allow increasing levels of per capita income growth for the people".

⁸ The list is long, but it is important to note that such studies have been very precise in the profiles of poverty, facilitating intervention (for the interested reader Wangwe, 1996 is a required reading).

⁹ To our knowledge this is the first serious attempt to consolidate the various interventions in poverty alleviation in Tanzania. It would be a useful framework if the Poverty Division in the Government machinery were to adopt it (It is known that such an initiative is absent!).

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