Ten research projects in Tanzania have received funding to help address key challenges related to poverty. These projects aim to provide important findings that will improve national strategies, policies, and programs focused on reducing poverty.

The research is expected to strengthen poverty reduction efforts and lessen its impact on communities, making poverty alleviation initiatives more effective across the country. The grants were awarded to researchers from different institutions, including the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM), Zanzibar Research Center for Socio-economic Research, Mkwawa University College of Education (with three projects), Open University of Tanzania (OUT), Global Water Partnership Tanzania, Ifakara Health Institute (IHI), and the Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF).

The funding provided for each project ranges between 5,000 and 50,000 Euros. The selected projects focus on various poverty-related issues, such as improving social protection through a conditional cash transfer program, analyzing how financial inclusion and social protection affect the link between climate change and poverty, and using Open-Source Nexus modeling to study water-related issues and extreme poverty.

Other projects examine different aspects of poverty reduction, including institutional challenges, the combined effects of land rights extension services and financial services, and the impact of shocks, agricultural intensification, self-help groups, and household welfare. Some studies also focus on climate change's effect on agricultural employment, productivity, and youth poverty, as well as how poverty affects healthcare demand and supply in Tanzania.

Additional research is being conducted on school government programs and their influence on young people’s sense of civic duty, the socio-economic effects on mothers of children with disabilities, and the creation of a digital database to track households living in poverty. A community opinion dashboard is also being developed to improve social service delivery in Zanzibar.

Ms. Pamela Shao, Senior Consultant and Country Manager of Oxford Policy Management Tanzania, explained why Tanzania was chosen as the first focus country for the DEEP Challenge Fund. “It’s wonderful that all ten of the DEEP Challenge Fund grants have now been awarded.

Tanzania has growing national research resources, with quality researchers in universities and in government ministries, meaning that an expanding bank of good quality poverty analysis data is now available from both traditional surveys and Big Data sources,” she stressed.

Dr. Twahir Mohammed Khalfan, Director of Research and Policy Analysis at the Zanzibar Research Centre for Socio-Economic and Policy Analysis (ZRCP), shared that they will conduct a feasibility study to support the development of a digital poverty registry. This database will be updated by volunteers. “We want to hear the voices of the citizens regarding community services.

Our data will help identify the location of a house or farm as well as enable us to know where a person lives. It will help eliminate the repeated questioning during censuses,” he said. He also mentioned that the data would be collected at a low cost using modern technologies.

Mr. Jaah Mkupete, a Lecturer in the Department of Economics and Geography at Mkwawa University College of Education, is researching whether legal land ownership can help reduce poverty in rural Tanzania. He emphasized the need for better policies: “We are seeing the gap! In Africa, and Tanzania specifically, policies have promoted land certification to enhance household access to credit using land as collateral for improved welfare.

However, little effort has been made to strengthen credit markets and expand extension services in rural areas to complement land tenure programmes.” His study will produce a policy brief with recommendations to improve land security, credit access, and agricultural knowledge for better poverty reduction outcomes.

Ms. Mariana Makuu, a Lecturer at OUT, is researching the socio-economic impact on mothers of children with disabilities. She noted that these caregivers often face emotional and social difficulties that can lead to or deepen poverty. “This research looks at whether these challenges can be mitigated when mothers are part of a supportive collective,” she said.