Oxfam's work in Tanzania in depth

In Tanzania, Oxfam's focus is on building sustainable livelihoods, improving the quality of education, and supporting accountable transparent governance.

The context

In Tanzania poverty is largely a rural phenomenon. According to the Household Budget Survey, 80% of the poor are rural (HBS, 2002) and 81% of the poor live in households where the main economic activity of the head of the household is agriculture. It is also the case that 70% of the employed work in agriculture (ILFS, 2002). While agriculture remains the sector contributing the largest share to GDP, estimated at 50% since 1990, its share of annual growth has been falling. Non-agricultural sectors making smaller contributions to growth and GDP are now on the increase.

How Oxfam is helping

Oxfam has been working in Tanzania since the early 1970s. Our current work aims to improve livelihoods, to ensure people have adequate basic services, are safe, and can have an influence over decisions that affect them and their communities. Oxfam’s work includes primary education in urban and rural areas, helping people to have enough food, emergency responses to help people affected by armed conflict and natural disasters, and support for a range of associations and networks which share Oxfam’s commitment to fighting poverty.

Education is crucial. It enables marginalised people to take control of their lives and raise their standards of living. Oxfam is involved in education projects in Shinyanga Region and the Ngorongoro District of Arusha Region.

Good practices, experiences and learning from Oxfam’s work is shared locally, nationally, regionally, and internationally. This will in turn contribute to the Global Education Campaign for affordable good-quality education for all children by 2015.

Oxfam and its partners have the capacity to provide timely and high-quality emergency assistance to those whose lives or livelihoods are threatened by drought. We work with UNHCR and local partners to ensure the protection and upholding of refugee rights. This work is done by providing safe and adequate water and sanitation facilities in refugee camps and the provision of a forum for refugees to air their issues.

Oxfam also works with and supports the government in the development and implementation of a national disaster preparedness and response strategy. The organisation has been instrumental in the establishment of early warning systems at the district level and engaging with the national level food security information system.

Oxfam is developing stronger livelihoods work in Tanzania, targeting communities that are particularly vulnerable, focusing on drought-prone areas and the existing key areas of Ngorongoro and Shinyanga. Oxfam aims to ensure that communities have enough food and income. The main beneficiaries are women, young people, small-scale farmers, and other vulnerable groups.

Oxfam has been working with rural communities on projects designed to give people the chance to earn a living and to build more secure futures for themselves and their families. This work includes teaching communities about their land rights; improving pre-school child care facilities so that women can go out to work; and providing credit and loan schemes so that poor people can borrow at a fair rate of interest to set up their own small businesses.

Ngorongoro and the Serengeti in northern Tanzania are among Africa’s top tourist attractions. But life there for the nomadic Maasai can be particularly hard. Many Maasai can no longer use water sources taken over by tourist lodges, and are being denied the right to farm, graze livestock, or even build permanent houses on their traditional lands.

Oxfam promotes groups and associations to represent nomadic herders (Pastoralists), and to speak up for their rights in the policy and planning processes that affect them. Oxfam also provides cash loans and marketing advice for pastoralist so that they can sell their own products and improve their livelihoods.

 

Last updated: February 2011