Prof Issa Shivji. PHOTO | FILE
Dar es Salaam. Rural dwellers could be richer than the way they were currently being portrayed, researchers say, calling for change in poverty measurement metrics.
Instead of basing purely on incomes of rural dwellers, researchers who took part in the launch of a book titled Prosperity in Rural Africa? at the University of Dar es Salaam recently also stressed the need to carefully consider rural dwellers’ properties in their poverty analyses.
The book is based on a five-year study which involved more than five local and international researchers in collaboration with Oxford University.
The researchers argue that, while existing official reports show that rural poverty has been declining at a painfully slow rate, the truth could be that there has been a steady improvement in quality and housing settlements in rural areas.
“How is it possible for the perceived poor rural population to construct such relatively good houses?” queries a researcher from University of Sheffield, Prof Dan Brockington.
He said it was due to such changes that they decided to undertake a research basing on long-term dynamics and asset data in rural Tanzania.
He said currently, farmers’ investments in ventures such as herd, land, purchases of inputs such as fertiliser, improved seeds or a lough were not being included in the expenditure records used to calculate poverty.
Thus, they suggest that perhaps the paradox that needs to be explained is not the failure of economic growth to reduce rural poverty, but rather why the data used to capture poverty lines does not consider the ability of Tanzanians to own property.
“This collection of case studies of the rural populace in Tanzania is woven around the argument that in identifying poverty indices it is important to consider the ownership and expansion of assets of rural households,” says Prof Issa Shivji, Professor Emeritus, University of Dar es Salaam.
According to Prof Christine Noe, one of the researchers and editors of the book, the research that spawned the book focused on knowing the changes that have taken place in rural areas over the past 20 years - and what made them happen.
She reveals that researchers who had conducted studies in several villages and documented facts, returned to the respective villages and talked to the same families revealing new realities.
“We have had very good results as researchers, but it is also a very good outcome for policy makers and surveyors in measuring poverty lines in the country,” she says.
She adds that although rural life may seem poor, it contributed significantly to the economy of the country.
She explains that rural people had their own ways of investing which were not given much weight and that the book has shown that the contribution of rural people to economic development was greater than people were made to think.
“We believe that this research will inform policy decisions, as it creates new challenges that help in strengthening the means to dealing with social issues,” says Prof Noe, who is also associate professor at the University of Dar es Salaam.
She noted that, to understand poverty dynamics in rural African societies, there must be examination of changes to the assets that people control.
“When we talk to rural Tanzanians about what wealth and poverty mean, they tell us about assets. Assets are crucial to local perceptions of what a good life is,” she says.
She reveals that they have found transformations in rural people’s lives as viewed through the assets they have been able to build up.
Prof Brockington says “it is now the responsibility of policymakers to take this outcome and plan for action on what to do when measuring poverty levels in the country.”
The Minister for Agriculture, Prof Adolf Mkenda, believes the book would contribute towards changing the narrative about rural Tanzanians.
He says the book was as a result of a research innovation based on assessing community and people’s development and highlighting one of the findings that has often been overlooked in various reports.
He notes that, although the government has been striving to invest in rural infrastructure as well as other measures to bring development to the people, it has been difficult to know whether people’s lives have changed or not without using innovative research approaches.
Finding people who once conducted studies in the villages to revisit their research areas 20 years later, look at the situation in a different approach and a creative endeavor was a commendable achievement, according to Prof Mkenda.
“These research has gone to various villages and monitored the lives of individuals and came up with local evidence. It is indeed a great innovation in research,” says Prof Mkenda.
He affirms that most surveys have often focused on a person’s income and failed to accurately reflect a person’s poverty line. “These researchers did not ask for someone’s income but focused on the assets that rural people owned.”
“This gives us confidence as policy makers to know if living conditions have changed in order to plan and formulate policies that are in line with the realities of our people,” he notes.
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