East African Business Week

DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA - Even in the face of an impressive 7% GDP growth in the last decade, Tanzania's poverty rate in Tanzania particularly among the rural populations remains stubbornly high.
A World Bank report titled, 'Tanzania: Poverty, Growth and Public Transfers, the failure of growth to reduce poverty' said in part it had to do with the composition and the failure of the rural agrarian economy to transform rapid enough to keep up with population growth.
In the report, the World Bank recommends that the Government has to move from the fragmented to unified national program for sustainable and effective reduction of poverty in the country.
The report says the proposed unified national program should consist of two main programs: large-scale national public works employment schemes for the able-bodied poor; and a program of small but regular cash transfer to those unable to fend for themselves, with payments linked to other interventions to improve their nutrition, education, and productivity.
Such program might cost about US$150 million annually or 0.3 percent of the national Gross National Product (GDP), about the same as is currently being spent on transfer programs, says the report.
Ms Anush Bezhanyan, the World Bank Lead Social Protection Specialist, said in Dar es Salaam last week that the current programmes are generally not large-scale enough to improve income levels.
 "The transfers they provide are often too small to significantly make the difference to the households receiving them, and most of the poor are not reached by any programme."
She said that the combination of programs is recommended seeks to achieve more broadly a rise of the income of the poorest and most food-insecure, through a programme of sustained and financial sustainable productivity-enhancing transfers.
"The programme will help protect against lean-seasonal food shortages and price rises, and will provide targeted, direct support to those unable to participate in the labour force or fend for themselves. The subset of disabled, elderly, orphans and other vulnerable children who are not living in viable households," said Ms Bezhanyan.