Tanzania

Tanzania has undergone a series of economic reforms since the 1980s and returned to democratic rule in 1995. Macroeconomic indicators, the business climate, and foreign direct investment have all improved, bringing annual growth rates of between 5 and 7% during 2000-2007 and making Tanzania one of the better performers in sub-Saharan Africa. But poverty fell by only two percentage points during this period and the agriculture sector, which provides 85% of exports and employs 80% of the workforce, grew at only 4.5%.

In order to address these challenges, the IGC-Tanzania programme is focused on macroeconomic management, public finance, poverty reduction, regional trade and infrastructure, firm capabilities, and agriculture. Specific research and analytical work covers fiscal policy issues, the challenge of jobless growth, money demand, food and fuel prices and inflation dynamics, dollarization, spatial price dispersion and market integration, and other areas.
The IGC-Tanzania office is hosted by the Bank of Tanzania.

Below are short summaries and updates about IGC work in Tanzania, either from country engagement or individual research programmes.

Tanzania

Growth Week - current agenda
Adam Robert Green

Please download the current agenda for Growth Week, subject to modifications. Day time sessions are now closed. 4.30 pm and 6.30pm sessions are open to the public on a first-come first-serve basis.

Growth and Informality in Urban Africa (Infrastructure and Urbanisation programme)
Francis Teal

Tanzania and Ghana have both seen improvements in their growth rates and, in the case of Ghana, a spectacular reduction in the poverty rate which halved between 1991 and 2005. A common trend in both countries has been the growth in informality in the labour force. Why has growth in output been associated with informality? How are policies which lead to accelerated growth linked to increases in formality? Francis Teal (Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford) explores.

David Bevan Assesses Tanzania's Fiscal Challenges
David Bevan

The IGC is pleased to publish a paper by David Bevan on Tanzania's short and long term fiscal challenges.

IGC-Tanzania Team on Money Demand
Christopher Adam

The IGC along with a Bank of Tanzania team develop an econometric model of the demand for broad money in Tanzania which explicitly models the process of structural change in Tanzania since the major economic and financial reforms of the mid-1990s.

The Economic Impact of Urban Property Rights in Tanzania: The Role of Infrastructure (Infrastructure and Urbanisation programme)
Stefan Dercon

The formalisation of property rights is one market-based tool to alleviate poverty, encouraging investment in the land and, by transforming land into collateral, enabling access to credit. Yet few studies have examined the impact of policies geared to strengthen property rights in urban areas, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Stefan Dercon (Oxford University), Andrew Zeitlin (Oxford University) and Klaus Deininger (World Bank) investigate the economic and welfare implications of offering property rights to urban dwellers in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Update

24th March 2010
Initial visit to Tanzania

A Policy Advice and Research Consultative visit to Dar es Salaam took place from 22-23 January 2010. This visit focused on agricultural issues in Tanzania, and the IGC-Tanzania Country Leadership Team is now in the process of commissioning three projects on the issues discussed.