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afrol News, 8 October - Tanzania's structural reforms are producing just the type of economic development World Bank criticisers warned about. Significant and stable GDP growth produces a slight a reduction in poverty rates but mostly, it produces greater disparities. According to report by the UN development agency UNDP, "an expanding economy has helped lower Tanzania's poverty level slightly, but more than a third of the people still live below the poverty line and new data show a growing rural-urban poverty gap." The findings led a recent Dar es Salaam forum called Poverty Policy Week to discuss how to allocate more resources to areas with the highest poverty levels. Forum participants included representatives from civil society, religious institutions, the private sector, donor countries, and international organisations. Tanzania's economy grew by an average of 4.1 per cent a year from 1995 to 2000, while inflation fell from 33.5 percent to only 5.5 percent. The mining sector grew fastest, by nearly 15 per cent annually. According to UNDP, the economic surge helped bring the poverty rate in Dar es Salaam down from 28 percent a decade ago to 18 percent. For mainland Tanzania, the rate fell only three percent, however, from 39 percent to 36 percent, reflecting the persistent grip of poverty in rural areas. One person in five in the Mbeya region in the southwest lives in poverty, but more than half the people in Singida region, in central Tanzania, and Lindi region in the southeast are below the poverty line, the UN agency says. Poverty Policy Week is part of the Poverty Monitoring System, a joint initiative by the Tanzanian government, UN agencies and key development partners to provide reliable information to guide decision making on development issues. Vice President Ali Mohammed Shein at the meeting emphasised the importance of empowering people with knowledge. "It goes without saying that institutions carrying out research on issues concerning people have the duty to ensure that findings are communicated back to the people," he said, according to UNDP. UNDP Resident Representative John Hendra said it was clear that poverty reduction policies work better if they were based on accurate data. "It is equally important that the data is made available for all partners so that they can advocate for better policies," he added. A focus of discussion was the draft Poverty and Human Development Report, produced by the Poverty Monitoring System and modelled on UNDP national Human Development Reports. Civil society groups pointed out that report will serve as a scorecard for monitoring Tanzania's progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. Attention also centred on a new household budget survey, the largest ever conducted, and a labour force survey. UNDP was providing support for the Poverty Monitoring System and its socio-economic database in collaboration with other partners, and to the household budget survey and this year's national census, the agency reports. Sources: Based on UNDP and afrol archives
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