Poverty still high in Tanzania

According to World Bank poverty is still high in Tanzania with majority Tanzanians living in rural areas. The bank said in a report released in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam that despite the positive changes in recent years, the number of poor particularly in rural areas is still high and the welfare disparity between the geographic regions was widening.

The report said poverty was high in rural areas, higher among large families and families whose heads of household have low level of education and low access to infrastructure.Based on the 2012 Household Budget Survey, the World Bank’s Tanzania Mainland Poverty Assessment showed that poverty has declined by approximately one percentage point each year between 2007 and 2012.Basic needs poverty, which referred to the minimum resources needed for physical wellbeing, declined from 34.4 percent in 2006 to 28.2 percent in 2012 while extreme poverty also decreased from 11.7 percent to 9.7 percent, caused by sustained economic growth during the period.The report also indicated that there were signs of pro-poor growth during the period although approximately 70 percent of Tanzanians continued to live with less than 2 U.S. dollars per day.However, less well-off households continue to suffer from different forms of deprivations, said Nadia Belhaj Hassine Belghith, World Bank senior economist and lead author of the report who presented the assessment summary.“Poverty is particularly pervasive in the rural areas where around 70 percent of the Tanzanian population lives. This is due to the fact that the economy is being driven by fast-growing sectors like financial intermediation and communication which do not create more jobs,” she said.“This report gives us the information on the areas the government policies should address,” Tanzanian Finance Minister Saada Mkuya Salum said.