Oxfam's work in Tanzania in depth

Oxfam GB has been working in Tanzania since the early 1970s. Since then, we’ve put into action programmes which focus on making a demonstrable difference to people’s lives.

A great deal has been achieved so far – our work training teachers in Shinyanga, for example, has helped to raise the quality of education for over 100,000 girls and boys. The reality for millions of Tanzania’s poorest and most vulnerable communities, however, is that the struggle to lift themselves out of extreme poverty continues.

In 2007, therefore, we set ourselves a new challenge, with a bold ambition – to use our experience in Tanzania to demonstrate strategies which can bring lasting, positive change to the lives of millions, not just thousands, of people facing poverty in Tanzania.

For the next ten years we’re focusing our attentions on the three areas where we believe we can make the greatest impact – improving the quality of education, supporting smallholder agriculture and demonstrating that accountable governance is key to empowering people to find their own path out of poverty.

Further reading:

• Oxfam GB’s current programme of action is outlined in our National Change Strategy for Tanzania 2007 – 2017
• The Oxfam GB in Tanzania Annual Report 2006/07 provides information on some of our recent activities.

Areas of Oxfam's work in Tanzania

Education – Capitalising on the success of the EQUIP programme

Education is crucial tool in the fight against extreme poverty – it empowers people to take control of their lives and raise their standards of living. Recent years have seen a significant increase in government investment in formal education – in part thanks to debt relief – but this in itself has raised new questions about how we ensure that every Tanzanian receives quality, life-changing education.

Since 2003 we’ve provided in-service training and professional development support to all 2000 teachers in the Shinyanga District (in the north west of Tanzania) through the Education Quality Improvement through Pedagogy (EQUIP) programme. As a result of the programme:

• Lessons have become more participatory, interesting and pupils’ confidence has increased along with teachers’ morale and skills
• Since 2003, pass rates have risen over 30 per cent and about twice as many children are progressing on to secondary school
• Teachers have benefited from the provision of better teaching and learning resources – we’ve constructed five new Teacher Resource Centres, renovated 12 more, and equipped them with learning materials. In addition, 27 school libraries have been renovated and kitted out
• Clean water and improved sanitation has been provided to the most vulnerable schools. We’ve donated rainwater harvesting tanks to 33 schools, and built or renovated shallow wells in 22 remote rural communities;

Angelina Chacha, Mwenge primary school, Shinyanga

We’re now working to scale up the successes of EQUIP by lobbying and campaigning local and national government to make access to a quality formal education the rule, rather than the exception, in Tanzania, to ensure that all Tanzanian children enjoy the opportunity to be the best they can.

Oxfam continues to empower local civil society organisations to voice their needs and issues, and to advocate education policy changes. We’ve helped establish national (TEN/MET) and local (Shinyanga) education networks which will act as forums for civil society debate on education. We have also been active behind the Global Campaign for Education Week of Action and the Tanzanian Teachers’ Day campaigns.

Livelihoods – fighting rural poverty

Poverty in Tanzania hits those living in rural communities the hardest.

Through Oxfam’s Tanzania Agriculture Scale-up (TASU) programme, we’re working to improve household income and quality of life for more than 1 million rural, predominantly female, smallholder producers, by 2017. We’re currently working in Shinyanga and the programme will later expand to the Tanga region.

To achieve this we are working to demonstrate that if empowered, smallholders can be the drivers of agricultural growth. We will be developing four pro-poor commodities, through partners:

Rice (paddy) – for local markets
Sisal – for local and regional markets
Chickpea – for export markets
Local chicken – for local markets

 

Why focus on agriculture in Tanzania?

36% of the population still live below one US dollar a day Smallholder farmers account for over 90% of all the land under cultivation, producing close to 99% of the cereal and 98% of maize produced Just 40% of rural farming households have three meals a day Fewer than 20% of farmers use any sort of inputs at all, including farmyard manure, and only 4% of cultivable land is irrigated and 0.8% of farming households use tractors 3% of farming households access any form credit for agriculture, 83% of which are male headed Figures from 2002/03 Tanzania Agricultural Census

 

We're focusing on the following key activities:

• Supporting smallholders to form economically viable groups, so that they can advocate for their rights at different levels.
• Encouraging the use of better technology by smallholders to boost productivity, and therefore, food security and income.
• Empowering women to participate in shaping their own economic and social development. Although 71.7 per cent of women in Tanzania work on their family’s farms, they do not recieve an equal share of the household money, or power to decide how it is spent.
• Identifying appropriate training for producer’s groups and encouraging shared best practices that others can then adapt.

Milestones reached so far:

• TASU has been developed in close collaboration with smallholder producers since 2006.
• Two key TASU projects are already underway; developing the value chains of (a) rice and (b) local chicken. Sisal value chain development also began in June 2009.
• The lead partners which Oxfam will be working with to deliver these projects have been identified - The Traditional Irrigation Improvement Programme (TIP) for rice and The Tanzania Agricultural Society on Agricultural Education and Extension (TASEE) – Lake Zone for local chicken.
• As part of our rice and local chicken projects, we’ve helped organise the formation of a significant number of producer groups. So far:
• Rice: 90 groups have been formed in 30 villages, comprising 2,492 smallholder producers of whom 38 per cent are women and 62 per cent men - indirectly benefiting nearly 12,500 people.
• Local chicken: 143 groups have been formed involving 4,617 chicken keepers, 51 per cent of which are women and 49 per cent men – indirectly benefiting nearly 23,000 people in 31 villages.
• Training on group dynamics and leadership, improved production, processing and marketing with these groups is ongoing

Good Governance: working with citizens and government to deliver positive change

Good governance, accountability, and effective citizenship participation are fundamental to achieving positive change for millions of Tanzanians. Poverty and inequality can only be tackled effectively when communities have a genuine say in the decisions that affect their lives.

Through our Governance programme we are working with citizens, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and government institutions (both local and national) to make sure that every Tanzanian has the opportunity to participate in shaping their own future.

We believe that when faced with more informed citizens, local government institutions will be forced to improve their ability to respond and be accountable to the public. The Governance programme will be working to empower citizens through the following approach:

• Supporting the creation and development of CSOs and helping to forge coalitions and networks between these groups
• Strengthening the capacity of CSOs to engage with local and national government
• Assisting poor and vulnerable communities to be self organised so they can engage directly with decision-makers
• Encouraging Government, both local and national, to adopt and maintain the principles of transparency, participation, accountability and equality
• Increased participation of women in public decision-making forums
• Promoting and supporting more women in leadership and helping women to gain the confidence and skills to participate in public life

Supporting pastoralist livelihoods

Since 2001 we have worked with Maasai pastoralist communities in Ngorongoro, Tanzania. The Maasai are some of the country’s most marginalised people who often live in drought and disaster-prone areas. With little influence over policies that have denied them access to water sources and the right to farm, graze and even build homes on their traditional lands, we have been working to empower pastoral organisations to defend the rights of their communities.

When women decide, they can

Although much has been done to help promote gender equality in Tanzania, women are still generally not considered to be political actors or suitable for leadership; yet they form a majority of those facing problems such as poverty and poor educational opportunities.

Our experience strongly suggests that the greatest changes tend to occur in communities where women take up positions of leadership or have a greater say in the (political, economic and social) decisions that affect their lives, and we’re working to make sure that women are better able to participate in everything which we do in Tanzania.

Addressing climate change

Climate change has had a brutal effect on Tanzania’s economic growth in recent years. Those working in agriculture have generally been hit the hardest, with widespread loss of crops and livestock leaving many rural households facing extreme poverty.

We’ve taken these problems into account across our Tanzania National Change Strategy. In agriculture, the TASU programme is focusing on lengthening product value chains and encouraging smallholders to be less reliant on purely subsistence farming. Alongside this, we are working to ensure government, local communities and development actors take disaster risk reduction and drought-cycle management measures into account.

Work with other Oxfams

We work with Oxfam Ireland and Oxfam Novib toward mitigating the impact of HIV and AIDS amongst our partners and within the communities that we jointly support. HIV and AIDS prevention, support, care and treatment facilities are provided to staff and their families. We also work with our partners to ensure that the impact of HIV and AIDS on the communities that they serve is taken into consideration in the implementation of their programmes. We work with Oxfam Ireland and Oxfam NOVIB toward influencing policies and practices relating to pastoralism, land, investment and trade and markets in Tanzania. Our desire is to ensure that policies and practices emanating from government in relation to these four areas benefit the poor.

 

Updated: March 2009