Translating Growth Into Poverty Reduction

Tanzania is a politically stable, much-aided country that has consistently grown economically during the first decade of the millennium, while also improving its human development indicators. However, poverty has remained persistent, particularly within rural areas. This collaborative work delves into the reasons why this is so and what can be done to improve the record. The book is the product of both Tanzanian and international poverty experts, based on largely qualitative research undertaken within Tanzania by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC). The authors highlight and discuss the importance of macro- and micro-level causes of the persistence of poverty. The latter, on which the book is focused, centre around a negative dynamic affecting a large number of poor households in which widespread failure to provide household food security undermines gender relationships and reduces the possibility of saving and asset accumulation which is necessary for escaping poverty. This results in very low upward mobility. Vulnerability is widespread and resilience against shocks minimal, even for those who are not absolutely poor. Through an in-depth and broad analysis of poverty in Tanzania, the book provides alternative conclusions to those often repeated in the poverty discourse in international and local arenas. The conclusions were reached with the specific aim of informing political and policy debates within Tanzania.

About the author
Flora Lucas Kessy is a Senior Social Research Scientist at the Ifakara Health Research and Development Centre, Morogoro, Tanzania. She holds a PhD in agricultural and consumer economics. She has researched and published widely on issues related to gender and development and reproductive health, in particular on family planning and HIV and AIDS.

Oswale Mashindano is currently Lecturer at the University of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. He has previously worked with the Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF) and provided technical support to the team that drafted the Zanzibar Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (MKUZA).

Andrew Sheperd has worked on poverty reduction and rural development since the 1970s and is currently a research fellow at the Overseas Development Institute, London and a co-director of the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network.

Lucy Scott an External Associate of the Brooks World Poverty Institute at the University of Manchester. She has been involved in the work of the Chronic Poverty Research Centre and has field experience of Bangladesh and Tanzania.

International availability:
This book is internationally distributed by African Books Collective