Rural Livelihood And Poverty In Tanzania: An Emperical Study Of Mkinga District, Tanga Region

The study explores the rural livelihood and poverty in Tanzania, with Mkinga district taken as a case example. Specifically, the study analyzes how rural livelihood framework could be applied to assess poverty and how rural livelihood improvement can lead to poverty reductions in the selected area. A multi stage sampling was used to choose studied households and 210 household heads were interviewed. Both primary and secondary data instruments were used to collect data. Primary data was collected through questionnaires, focus group discussions (FGD) and interviews whilst secondary data was obtained from subject relevant document reviews. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics to get frequency and percentiles while inferential analysis involved use of cross tabulations and Chi square tests were carried to establish relationships between study variables. Specifically Chi square test were used to assess the associations of the factors that have significant linkage between poverty and livelihood structure. The results indicate that gender of household heads, marital status, access to finance, dependency ratio and household size were significant factors associated with poverty.From cross tabulation analysis, it was found that; gender, size of land the household owns, the size of farm used in farming, household size and the dependency ratio were found to be related to poverty. Although, Chi square results negated the expected results of economic activities as regard to contribution or have linkage to poverty among the households. The occupation of household head has a direct bearing on the poverty and general livelihood of the people. With this, consideration potential for occupation diversification as a strategy for rural livelihood transformation cannot be disputed in order to enhance livelihood of rural poor community. However, while addressing the poverty in the country, the issue of integrated approach which recognizes the people to take control of their own destinies and policies together with no corrupt government is important. Hence, poverty can be fought by having strong institutions and equitable means of sharing available resources. Nevertheless, political commitments to include social economic developments is needed to advocate for efforts of reducing poverty because available evidences point to the weak redistributive aspect of growth, especially the weak linkages with rural areas where the majority of the population lives.To triangulate the field data, interviews were organized for Government officials to elucidate on the specific role and effectiveness of government projects geared towards poverty reduction in the study area. The analysis made from the interviews, it was found that there was little contribution of the projects to the livelihood improvement because most of the people don’t benefit directly. This is due to the fact that the fund provided for the project was not enough; market was not fully utilized as expected due to small amount of fish catch as a result of illegal fishing, impact of climate change and poor tools of fishing. Furthermore, poor project coordination and low education levels of village leaders contributed to the same.Based on the findings, the following recommendations are suggested; (ⅰ) the local people especially women should be empowered to have positive attitudes towards participating in economic activities using resources around them. On the other hand, people should be educated to do away with some of the cultural backgrounds that prevent them especially women to participate in economic activities. (ⅱ) More effort should be made to educate people so as to increase literacy level in the area. Giving proper education to people may have a positive effect on minimizing family sizes hence reducing the problem of having more dependents in the household, (ⅲ) Food and cash crops productions should be the policy focus of government to non farming community through all government levels in the country in order to trim down food and income poverty especially in rural areas. Furthermore, political commitments to include social economic developments is needed to advocate efforts of reducing poverty because available evidences point to the weak redistributive aspect of growth, especially the weak linkages with rural areas where the majority of the population lives.