Monitoring Poverty in Tanzania –

Lessons learnt and challenges ahead

Dr Servacius B. Likwelile

Director, Poverty Eradication Division,

Vice-President’s Office, United Republic of Tanzania

Paper presented at the Statistics South Africa – PARIS21 Monitoring Development Indicators Workshop, Cape Town, April 3, 2002

Introduction

Tanzania has over the past two years established a comprehensive poverty monitoring system, which is documented in a Poverty Monitoring Master Plan (PMMP).[1] The aim of the poverty monitoring system is to ensure that timely and reliable evidence on changes in the level and nature of poverty is available to all relevant stakeholders. This will allow an accurate assessment of the impact of poverty reduction efforts and will provide clues on how the effectiveness and efficiency of these efforts may be improved.

Tanzania’s poverty monitoring system has been called one of the most comprehensive and ambitious of its type. Therefore, there is a lot of international interest in learning from Tanzania’s experiences in this area. However, a word of caution is required at the outset. Firstly, Tanzania’s poverty monitoring system is still very young. The design of the system was only completed at the end of 2001 and implementation has only just started. While we have high hopes that the system will indeed live up to the expectations and will produce the high quality outputs that are anticipated, the system will need to prove its viability over the next few years. Undoubtedly, we will meet some challenges along the way.

Secondly, the way the Tanzanian system has grown is to a large extent determined by the peculiarities of the Tanzanian institutional set-up, the strengths and weaknesses of the key actors involved in poverty monitoring and other contextual factors. It would be misguided to simply transplant the solutions we found in Tanzania to another context. The specificities of each country context need to be taken into account when designing a poverty monitoring system. Having said that, there are some early lessons that can be identified in the Tanzanian experience to date, which will be useful to take into consideration in other countries embarking on a similar endeavour.

This paper starts with a brief outline of the Tanzania’s policy framework for poverty reduction. This is followed by an overview of the history of Tanzania’s poverty monitoring system. The paper highlights the main features of the system and identifies some of the early lessons learnt which may be of use in other countries. Finally, the paper highlights some of the challenges which are ahead for the poverty monitoring system in Tanzania, both in the short and medium term.[2]

The Tanzanian policy framework for poverty reduction

It is important to note that putting the policy context as far as poverty reduction is concerned has been one of the first steps taken by Tanzanian government. Thus in the recent past Tanzania has developed a range of strategy papers and policy initiatives to guide its poverty reduction efforts. This process started well before the country became eligible for debt relief under the enhanced HIPC Initiative, which led to the drafting of a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP). The major landmarks are the National Poverty Eradication Strategy (NPES)[3], the Vision 2025 document for Mainland Tanzania and Vision 2020 for Zanzibar, and the Tanzania Assistance Strategy (TAS). There was already a process that was initiated beginning 1997 on the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and the Public Expenditure Review (PER).

Vision 2020 and 2025 describe in general terms the overall development goal the country wants to achieve over the course of the next few decades. The NPES sets a wide range of more specific poverty reduction targets. Its overall aim is to reduce abject poverty by 50 per cent by 2010 and eliminate abject poverty altogether in Tanzania by the year 2025. Among the priority sectors targeted in the NPES are education, health and nutrition, water and sanitation, agriculture, employment creation and income generation. The focus is on the translation of long-term aspirations into concrete, short-term and medium-term targets. The understanding of poverty in the NPES is a multi-dimensional one. The strategy describes poverty as a state of deprivation, prohibitive of decent human life. This covers a very wide range of indicators indeed. The Vision documents and the NPES have made it very clear that Tanzania needs to find ways to produce adequate, timely and reliable data and information for the wide range of poverty dimensions dealt with in these documents.

The government has also developed a framework known as the Tanzania Assistance Strategy (TAS). This strategy serves to guide the development cooperation with the international community. This sets out the framework for partnership on development given recognition of the need to harmonise donor support to avoid duplication of effort. The central idea of TAS is to improve the effectiveness of aid through the strengthening of local ownership, donor coordination and the promotion of best practices in partnership. The priorities in the TAS are in line with the NPES and Vision documents. In detailed preparatory work for the TAS, the current shortcomings in Tanzania's data and information systems became very apparent and a significant amount of work was done to document these shortcomings and to begin thinking about how to address them. The TAS process has also flagged the need for independent monitoring of development cooperation, to test practice against the principles laid down in the TAS.

The twin processes of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and the Public Expenditure Review (PER) are also instrumental in the overall policy framework for poverty reduction. It is through these processes that the government has begun to prioritise pro-poor expenditure and to track the efficiency and effectiveness of public expenditure.

When Tanzania qualified for debt relief under the enhanced HIPC Initiative in 1999, the drafting of a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper was initiated.[4] The Paper was approved by Parliament and endorsed by the Executive Boards of the World Bank and the IMF at the end of 2000.

PRSP Preparation Process

The Tanzanian PRSP was developed through a participatory process, which consulted a wide range of stakeholders at all levels of society. This process drew on the views of villagers, district councillors, government staff at all levels, civil society organisations, Members of Parliament, the private sector and the academic and research community. The Tanzania PRSP builds strongly on all the initiatives that were already in place. The strategy outlined in the PRSP emphasises the promotion of accelerated and equitable growth, investment in human capabilities, protection of vulnerable groups and the establishment of a conducive environment for growth and poverty reduction. The PRSP is narrower than the NPES, Vision and TAS, in that it covers a shorter time span (it has a three year outlook) and in that it further narrows down the priorities set in the earlier documents. It is expected that the annual updates will assist in taking on board the broader priorities as set out in the documents that preceded its formulation.

The enhanced HIPC Initiative makes a strong link between debt relief and poverty reduction and therefore needs regular data to assess to what extent this link is borne out in reality. Therefore, as part of the drafting process of the PRSP, a core list of indicators was drawn up and the outlines of a poverty monitoring system were sketched. Tanzania reached the completion point under the HIPC process in November 2001, after submitting its first PRS progress report[5] and designing its poverty monitoring system.

All these initiatives joined together make for a sound policy framework for poverty reduction, with clear, but ambitious targets. This sets a challenge on the use of available resources to meet the targets, in a manner that will achieve the greatest impact on poverty as possible. Timely and reliable evidence is indispensable in this context. It is against this backdrop – a clearly felt need for stronger evidence-based policy making – that Tanzania’s poverty monitoring system was designed.

A brief background to the poverty monitoring system in Tanzania

As noted earlier the design of the poverty monitoring system in Tanzania began in earnest when the country had finished drafting its Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), in October 2000. But while the PRSP drafting process acted as a catalyst, the need for a comprehensive poverty monitoring system was identified well before Tanzania became eligible for HIPC debt relief, as we have seen above. The design of the poverty monitoring system builds on a number of initiatives and processes that started before the PRSP drafting. Indeed it is these early foundations of the poverty monitoring system need to be taken into account while discussing steps taken by Tanzania in setting up its poverty monitoring system. This will help to understand the specificities of the system as it has unfolded.

One of the key policy documents in this regard is the Tanzania Assistance Strategy (TAS). This identified the need for a more coordinated, coherent and strategic approach to data and information on development. The drafting of the TAS was an inclusive, participatory process, in which various working groups produced background papers, which highlighted issues to be addressed by the strategy. One working group was on Data and Information, chaired by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). This group produced a Background Paper, which highlighted some of the common problems related to the collection, analysis and dissemination of evidence on development-related issues. These included: poor dialogue between users and producers, leading to under-utilised data sets and to gaps in the availability of required data; an ad hoc approach to the production of estimates on key indicators and the implementation of surveys and censuses; and the existence of conflicting estimates for the same indicator; to mention a few. The working group also highlighted the need in place an appropriate institutional framework. The Poverty Monitoring Master Plan is a conscious effort to address some of these concerns.

Also to be learnt from the TAS process is what the process had been able to promote, i.e., the new way of working among the external development partners. It prioritised national ownership and joint support for national strategies by the development partners. The process encouraged development partners to adjust their respective programmes to meet national needs and priorities and to work together to reduce transaction costs. It was hoped that the TAS initiative would eventually lead to greater effectiveness of external assistance. As the next sections in the paper show, this drive towards more coordinated external assistance has been one of the key principles underpinning the development of the poverty monitoring system.

Another initiative worth mentioning is the capacity building oriented Poverty Eradication Initiatives (PEI) Programme implemented by the Vice President’s Office and supported by UNDP. It was this Programme, which facilitated the drafting of the National Poverty Eradication Strategy (NPES). NPES did also stress the need for a monitoring system to be put in place. The Programme’s inputs into the establishment of a comprehensive monitoring system can be seen in two important outputs, which were influential in the shaping of the eventual PMS.

  • The Poverty and Welfare Monitoring Indicators: this provided a list of indicators to be used for poverty monitoring, which was also used to calculate a composite index and to provide a poverty ranking of the regions.[6] The list of indicators was drawn up on the basis of extensive consultations with stakeholders at national, regional and district levels. The Poverty and Welfare Monitoring Indicators booklet become an important reference document in the choice of indicators for the PRSP and for the PMMP.
  • Tanzania Socio-Economic Database (TSED): this provides an indicator database. TSED was conceived to provide user-friendly information on a range of socio-economic indicators. A first release of the database contains over 60 poverty-related indicators. TSED will be used as the repository for all quantitative data emerging from the poverty monitoring system, at both national and regional/district levels,[7] and as one of the main dissemination tools. The database is managed by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and was established with support from UNICEF, UNDP and DFID.

What this discussion reveals is the fact that the idea of a comprehensive poverty monitoring system existed in Tanzania well before the PRSP drafting began and that earlier processes and initiatives had already prepared the ground for the design of the poverty monitoring system. The PRSP process which, emphasises results orientation and evidence-based approach to the assessment of the effectiveness of the strategy acted, therefore, as an important catalyst.

Consensus building was one of the important aspects that guided the process. A series of consensus meetings were held. One such meeting concerned about the design of the poverty monitoring system was in the form of a ‘Roundtable Discussion on Poverty Monitoring’. This brought together a wide range of stakeholders, from Government, academic and research institutions, NGOs and development partners, including the presence of the World Bank mission allowing participation of key staff members from the organisation. Agreement was reached during this Roundtable Meeting on:

  • the broad objectives of the poverty monitoring system,
  • the data requirements of the PRSP, and
  • the data collection mechanisms to be used.

The institutional framework for poverty monitoring was also one of the critical areas that were discussed. The idea was to capture the interests of various stakeholders while recognising the legitimate roles being played by each one of them in poverty monitoring. The challenge was then to find an institutional framework that would accommodate these interests and roles in an acceptable and coherent manner while avoiding duplication of efforts and wastage of resources.

The Institutional Framework

The institutional framework has at the top a Poverty Monitoring Steering Committee, which has a broad membership and meets quarterly to give general guidance on the design and implementation of the poverty monitoring system. Linked to the Steering Committee is the Technical Committee for the Poverty Reduction Strategy, which was initially formed to coordinate drafting of the PRSP and is tasked with preparation of the Annual PRS Progress Reports. The work of the Technical Committee is supported by a Poverty Monitoring Secretariat, hosted by the Vice President’s Office and consisting of staff from VPO, Ministry of Finance and President’s Office – Planning and Privatisation. The Secretariat is also tasked with meeting the communication and coordination needs of the system as a whole. The operationalization of the system depends on the functioning of four Technical Working Groups (TWGs) involving a wide range of stakeholders from government, non-government groups as well as development partners. These are expected to do the substantial work on poverty monitoring. The framework requires the TWGs to communicate to the Poverty Monitoring Steering Committee through the PRS Technical Committee.

The four TWGs are following:

  • A Surveys and Census Working Group coordinates the implementation of a multi-year survey programme, under the leadership of the National Bureau of Statistics.
  • A Routine Data Systems Working Group, coordinated by the President’s Office – Regional Administration and Local Government, is responsible for coordination of routine data sources, to ensure that they produce timely and reliable estimates of poverty indicators.
  • A Research and Analysis Working Group is responsible for the coordination of a research and analysis work programme that will investigate the reasons behind poverty trends, assess questions of causality and impact, and test the assumptions underlying the PRSP. This group is coordinated by the President’s Office – Planning and Privatisation, with Research on Poverty Alleviation (REPOA) performing the secretariat function.
  • A Dissemination, Sensitisation and Advocacy Working Group, coordinated by the Vice-President’s Office, which is responsible for the coordination of a programme that will ensure that the key findings emerging from the poverty monitoring system will reach the appropriate stakeholders in the appropriate format.

Once the institutional framework was agreed upon, the TWGs were tasked with developing work programmes and capacity building plans, which would serve as inputs to the Poverty Monitoring Master Plan. The time span covered is 2001/02 to 2003/04. The Surveys and Censuses group drew on the work of consultants to develop a multi-year survey programme.[8] The Research and Analysis working group used a consultancy to develop a research framework.[9] All groups produced their work programmes by June 2001. After this, the Poverty Monitoring Secretariat compiled a first draft of the Poverty Monitoring Master Plan, which was reviewed and discussed by stakeholders on various occasions. The Poverty Monitoring Steering Committee and the Committee of Ministers discussed and approved the draft Master Plan in November 2001. It was printed and distributed as an official GOT document by the VPO. The completed Master Plan was instrumental in Tanzania reaching completion point in the HIPC process that same month.