Tanzania

Tanzania is Africa's sixth most populous country. It is known for its vast areas of wilderness. They include the plains of the Serengeti National Park, a safari mecca populated by the “big five” game (elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo, and rhino), and Kilimanjaro National Park, home to Africa’s highest mountain. Offshore are the tropical islands of Zanzibar, with Arabic influences, and Mafia, with a marine park home to whale sharks and coral reefs making it a popular destination for tourists.

Tanzania has sustained relatively high economic growth over the last decade, averaging 6–7% a year. While the poverty rate in the country has declined, the absolute number of poor citizens has not, because of the high population growth rate.

Country facts

Dodoma
Capital

63,588,334
Population

49,4%
Live in extreme poverty

22%
Above 15 years of age cannot read or write

160 of 191
Human Development Index

Our work

1980
Worked here since

58%
Women and girls

68%
Below 18 years

3 Local partners


Selected results (2019):

25 Bonga centres opened, with 698 adolescent girls and boys attending.

830 children were enrolled in kindergartens.

274 adolescents began a vocational education.

More about our work

A high proportion of youth have failed to continue with their schooling, and many have resorted to betting (sports gambling) and local board games. These energetic youth with great intellect and innovative ideas are reduced to becoming beggars, pick-pocketers, drug addicts or alcoholics, because they lack positive and constructive reference points which show them how to do something meaningful with their lives.

Education services in the rural areas of the Tanzania are still lagging behind, and a high dropout rate is still registered for children in primary school. Until recently, the government gave no support to early childhood development.

In the rural parts of Arusha, like Monduli, where Masai culture is still dominant, girls as young as 12 - 13 years are married off to old men in exchange for cows given to the parents. A girl, still a child, will become a mother without knowledge of basic nutrition and healthcare for her baby. Furthermore, female genital circumcision is still a practice that the Masai uphold.

In Tanzania, according to the law, once a girl gets pregnant, her right to education then ceases. The SDGs clearly stress that we should leave no one behind in development. All girls deserve the chance to have an education regardless of their circumstances. Monduli, like Singida, has people still relying on traditional farming methods for their livelihoods. With the current effects of climate change, these people have no chance at achieving a sustainable income unless something is done about it.

Interventions include:

Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), which provides conducive learning environments for children through the development of teachers’ competencies, strengthening of government structures, and parental involvement alongside infrastructural development.

Technical Vocational Education Training Programme (TVET) and the Adolescent Empowerment Programme - Bonga: youth are equipped with life skills (hygiene, rights etc.) and enhance their literacy and numeracy while vocational skills training enables them to gain employable and marketable skills. These in turn can help to set them up for life, improving their household incomes and the economies of their communities.

Through the Community Managed Savings Groups (CMSG), people in rural communities are organised into small savings groups from which they can take up loans to start income-generating activities (IGA). They are also equipped with different, climate smart farming techniques that enable them to withstand climate change in the hope of boosting food security and building sustainable villages.


 

Read more: http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/TZA