KARIBU KATIKA BLOG YETU

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Why majority of Tanzanians are impoverished in a Wealthy Country and How to eradicate Poverty’


Zitto Kabwe, MP
I use the term The Bottom 30M to paraphrase Paul Collier’s Bottom Billion. This article has been motivated by the article I read from The Citizen on Saturday of 9th June, 2012. The article (Tanzania: Don’t leave your rural world behind) authored by Jacques Morisset, an economist from The World Bank explains the obvious and answers the fundamental question, ‘why is Tanzania poor’.
Almost 30 million Tanzanians are left out of Tanzania’s success story because the economic growth has never been inclusive. The policies of economic development adopted by Tanzania as directed and supported by the Bretton Woods institutions is the main cause of this skewed growth.

For the last 10 years, a decade, of adopting Poverty Reduction Strategies (MKUKUTA I, II and now III) Tanzania has recorded a remarkable economic growth rates but with a puzzling outcome, because the majority still live in poverty. In 2011 the Poverty and Human Development Report (PHDR), the first statement recognizes this paradox of ‘a growing economy with increasing poverty’ and that of growth without jobs. One can claim that the bottom 30 millions Tanzanians are poor because the policy makers wanted it be.




Why are the majority of Tanzanians still poor?
Government reports as well as various research findings show that the poor live in rural Tanzania. The Household Budget survey of 2007 shows, 37% of the people living in rural areas are living below the poverty line, only 2% of the people have access to electricity and less than 40% have access to water supply. The Uwezo report ‘are our children learning‘ of 2011 shows that children from poor families do not get educated and for those in standard three in primary schools, only 3 out of 10 can answer a standard two question. This is a clear indication that the poor potentially get poorer and inequality widens.
Lifting poverty levels in the rural area could potentially improve even the welfare of urban community. Statistics show that majority of young people migrate to urban towns every day in search of greener pastures. However, it is clear from my explanations above, these young people would arrive in urban areas without sufficient job skills, without proper economic potentials and therefore this breeds another life of misery. It is not rocket science to link the high unemployment in our towns and cities and the increase in criminal activities such as drug trafficking, prostitution etc. The point I am driving home here is, it is in our best interest to improve the welfare of the rural majority in order to ensure peace and tranquility even to those who live in urban areas.
Why is poverty a rural phenomenal?
Mr. Morisset again states the obvious. Agricultural growth in Tanzania has been flat. Since Agriculture is the dominant sector in rural areas, then rural economy’s growth rate has been flat over the last decade. While we recognize record growth of Tanzanian economy, only a quarter has felt the growth leaving the rest living below the poverty line, for the last 10 years. This has happened because of poor and extractive policies on Agriculture (bureaucratic and corrupt crop boards, roadblocks, export bans on agriculture produce),  inadequate rural infrastructure ( irrigation, roads, energy and water supply) and a lack of focus ( leadership being distracted to lucrative rent generating sectors like mining and later telecom). In many sense, our leadership decided to leave the rural behind. Tanzania chose to have the Rural poor. Rural Development has never been on top of the agenda of the Government of Tanzania since 1985.   Rural Tanzania is poor because  post Mwalimu governments have made a consisous decision for it t be that way.