Agricultural Policy and Poverty Reduction in Tanzania: Policy Brief
Mwalimu Julius Nyerere the founder President of Tanzania, devoted most of his policies and efforts to rural development through the policy of Ujamaa whose objective was the emancipation of the poor from abject poverty and deprivation. He abolished feudal tenure and steered the promulgation of the Arusha Declaration in 1967 as a blue print for […]
REPOA e-Newsletter Q1 2019
In this Issue, REPOA has continued to climb up on the ladder as the best research institution in Tanzania. There are also preparations for the upcoming 24th Research Workshop. Welcome to read on
The Contractual Implications of the Tanzania Upstream Petroleum Fiscal Regime
The petroleum sector is characterized by substantial rents when discovered and developed. However, such rents are inherently volatile and finite. The effects of these returns to the economy especially for the emerging markets depend on how well such revenues are collected and managed. The purpose of this brief is to examine the effectiveness of the […]
Petroleum’s Potential Impact on Future State-Society Relations in Tanzania
Tanzanian citizens continue to have high expectations about the benefits that the country’s emerging petroleum sector will provide them with, yet they possess low knowledge about the sector. Policymakers should take concrete steps to rectify this knowledge-expectation gap by providing updated information inaccessible and easy-to-understand formats. Revenue transparency should be encouraged, and more research should […]
Civil society’s role in petroleum sector governance: The case of Tanzania
Good governance in the management of natural resources is now recognized by scholars and policymakers as key to ensuring that countries can prevent and escape the resource curse and translate resource wealth into inclusive economic development. Civil society is considered a key factor in ensuring good natural resource governance. Civil society organizations (CSOs) provide information, […]
Cursed before production?
Big discoveries of high value natural resources can have negative economic, political, and social effects long before full production of a resource begins. While Tanzania has already experienced some tensions around the country’s gas discovery, there is consensus among scholars and practitioners that the country has thus far generally avoided experiencing economic and political problems […]
The Impact of Cultural, Religious and Legal Factors on Women’s Empowerment through Conditional Cash Transfers
This brief draws from a research report titled “Assessing women empowerment in Tanzania: the case of the Productive Social Safety Net Programme”. The research was funded by the International Development Centre (IDRC) as part of a research programme on “Growth and Opportunities for Women” and supported by the Tanzania Social Action Fund (TASAF). It is […]
Assessing the Impact of Conditional Cash Transfers on Women’s Empowerment in Tanzania
This brief snapshot results from a study that examined the impact of cash transfers on household living standards, and on women empowerment in the period 2015– 2017. The study adopts a Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) approach, and panel data sets to carry out a quasi-experimental assessment of the Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT) component […]
Citizen’s satisfaction with public services and willingness to pay taxes in Tanzania
Measuring user’s satisfaction with the public goods and services are an important component of organizational performance strategies for continual improvement (OECD, 2013). It is also a means of allowing policymakers to understand their customer base, helping to identify needs or gaps in accessibility (OECD, 2013). Public services are key determinant of quality of life and […]
Alternatives to local content requirements in resource-rich countries
This paper discusses whether and to what extent resource-rich developing countries should introduce local content policies, i.e. requirements to include local inputs in petroleum extraction activities of multinational corporations. We argue that local content needs to be seen as a public expenditure question, since local content requirements increase multinational costs, and hence reduce the taxes […]
Growth, Employment, Poverty and Inequality in Tanzania
This paper shows that in Tanzania, economic growth contributes to job creation and employment opportunities, however, it does very little to curb income inequality. Using official data from various local sources compiled by the National Bureau of Statistics…
Determinants of Public Health Expenditure Growth in Tanzania: An Application of Bayesian Model
This paper identifies some major drivers of per capita public health expenditure growth in Tanzania using nationally representative annual data between 1995 and 2014. It used a Bayesian model based on Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation.
Non-resource taxation in a resource rich setting
A broader tax base will enhance tax compliance in Tanzania Huge reservoirs of natural gas have been discovered offshore the southern coast of Tanzania. The country might become a large producer of gas, and a potential exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) during the next decades.
Can Smallholders benefit from the new market opportunities from the extractive industry in Tanzania?
The recent discovery of huge oil and gas reserves in Tanzania has created a new opportunity for economic growth and development of the country. Tanzania is expected to be one of the leading producers and exporters of natural gas in the coming decade. However, 88 percent of poor Tanzanians live in rural areas and two-thirds […]
Targeted Not Blanket Allocation, is key to improving effectiveness of input use through voucher schemes
Agriculture development strategies continue to play an integral role in the economies and livelihoods of the poor in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) because of their predominantly agrarian economies and agriculture provides employment to large proportions of the population. Despite their importance to local economies, these strategies have historically been driven by funding from international development agencies. […]
Intergovernmental fiscal relations in Tanzania: Guidelines or directives?
The literature on political economy of decentralization underscores the importance of intergovernmental transfers as a vehicle for achieving national social, economic and political policy goals when administrative and financial powers are devolved to lower levels of government. Decentralization left without considering the capacity of authorities to raise enough resources and address needs will enhance inequity […]