Children and development discourse

Tanzania still has a long way to go if it is to ...

• protect children’s rights,
• comply with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and
• achieve its development aspirations.

There has been significant progress in the past five years in

• increasing school enrolment,
• reducing under-5 mortality and
• creating a more enabling environment for social policies that advance children’s rights,

But, there are some serious flaws to the assumptions that underpin Tanzania’s poverty reduction strategy (MKUKUTA 2005-2010).  

Economic growth does not inevitably filter down to the poor and catalyse the development of human capital. Growth in Tanzania’s GDP has not resulted in similar reductions in household poverty rates.

• 34% of the Tanzanian population lives below the poverty line and there have been negligible decreases in food poverty and basic needs poverty in urban and rural areas, with the latter carrying the brunt of the burden.
• Tanzania is comprised of a predominantly rural population (77 percent) that depends on underdeveloped smallholder primary agriculture production and has not benefited from strong economic growth.
• Poverty remains pervasive and largely rural, with growing income disparities.
• 82.9 percent of those living in rural areas live under the food poverty line while 83.6 percent live under basic needs poverty line.
• The absolute number of basic needs poor increased from 11,388,000 in 2000/01 to 12,870,00 in 2007 (Government of the United Republic of Tanzania, 2007).

The Tanzanian Government is ostensibly committed to social protection for its citizens, having signed the Livingstone Call for Action in 2006 that accords social protection the status of a right and an empowerment agenda. But in practice social and child protection is not viewed as a citizen’s entitlement. Rather, there is a reliance on

• Volunteer efforts of NGO’s, community groups and faith based organisations,
• Donor funded aid for social protection initiatives and

There has been a failure to cost an integrated and universal child protection programme and to plan for the institutional mandates, responsibilities and processes and financing that would need to be developed.

What drives these behaviours is the flawed assumption that drives development within the free market. Namely, that social and child protection will be invested in as a result of economic growth, not in order to grow.

There is a failure to see universal social protection as a driver of development.

Children, more than any other group of citizens, are the losers.

Innovative thinkers with regards to social policy argue that what is required is a magnitudinally significant investment in basic social services to drive economic growth (Mehrotra & Delamonica, 2002; Roy, Heuty, & Letouze, 2007).

The limited social protection that exists in Tanzania in a context of generalised insecurity serves to perpetuate deprivation and inequity amongst the poor, across generations and hits rural children particularly hard (Wuyts, 2006).

Without a real shift in political will, financing and systems towards children’s needs Tanzania’s human capital will become so compromised that it will be unable to achieve its goal of the eradication of poverty.