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Publications (307)
Book Chapter
Public social insurance is part of the broader social protection “toolbox”, typically understood to comprise also social assistance measures (such as cash transfers, benefits in kind, fuel subsidies and so on), social services and public works (see, for example, Carter et al. 2019). Until recently...
Blog
As greenhouse gases once again climb to record levels, countries are under pressure to make the move to a low-carbon economy. Policies that move in this direction are needed to mitigate against the worst impacts of climate change, but policy choices will have winners and losers. As it is crucial to...
Report
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This report documents TAZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Tanzania Mainland. This work was carried out by University of Dar es Salaam in collaboration with the project partners. The results presented in this report are derived using TAZMOD version 2.9, which is part of the SOUTHMOD bundle...
Blog
Uganda, with a fiscal deficit of 5.6% in 2023, has increasingly turned to local resources to make up for its revenue shortfall since the World Bank suspended its funding on 8 August 2023 over the country’s anti-homosexuality law. In early April 2024, traders in downtown Kampala protested against...
Working Paper
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– Re-thinking the use of unit values or community prices
Analysis of household food consumption patterns and welfare requires knowledge of household demand responses to changes in price and income. Estimation of the price and expenditure elasticities requires detailed data on household purchases and prices, which are often not available in many developing...
Sustainable economic development hinges on the ability of firms and households to maintain growth and wellbeing. How have Tanzania’s firms and households performed in recent decades, and what policies can improve their resilience against future shocks?Firms that export are better able to sustain...
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Sustaining Tanzania's Economic Development
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Sustaining Tanzania's Economic Development
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Sustaining Tanzania's Economic Development
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Sustaining Tanzania's Economic Development
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Sustaining Tanzania's Economic Development
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Sustaining Tanzania's Economic Development
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Upgrading and multi-scalar industrial policy in the Tanzanian textile and apparel sector value chain
From the book:
Sustaining Tanzania's Economic Development
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Sustaining Tanzania's Economic Development
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Sustaining Tanzania's Economic Development
– A firm and household perspective
This book addresses performance and strategies adopted by firms and households in Tanzania to navigate shocks and achieve sustainability. How successful have firms and households been in building resilience to sustain their growth and development? Has the ability to navigate successfully through...
Blog
Sub-Saharan Africa has abundant natural resources and a substantial market, with an estimated population of 1.2 billion. The population is projected to grow by nearly 80% and reach almost 2 billion people by 2043. This population growth is expected to parallel an economic expansion, with annual...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
When seeking to increase their tax revenues, policy-makers face a likely tradeoff between decreasing personal income tax rates (making formalizing more attractive and potentially contributing to revenue) and alternatively raising tax rates (potentially slowing down the formalization of the economy...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– A cross-sectoral analysis from a gender perspective
Mainland Tanzania has seen two decades of significant social policy reforms and transformations in its social and economic structures, whilst the country continues to grapple with persisting gender inequalities. This article examines Tanzania's social policy developments from a gender perspective...
– Latest addition to the SOUTHMOD programme
ZANMOD, the tax-benefit microsimulation model for Zanzibar, was launched in November 2023. The model will aid local authorities and researchers in understanding how taxation and social protection policies can be improved to reduce poverty and enhance equality.The research and coding work for the...
Blog
As we conclude the groundbreaking years of the 2019–2023 work programme on transforming economies, states, and societies, we reflect on the milestones achieved and anticipate the journey ahead.In 2019, I assumed the role of Director at UNU-WIDER and initiated the planning of the new work programme...
Blog
Launched in 2015 and completed in 2022, the Institutional Diagnostic Project aimed at identifying institutional factors that affect development, reforms that may help address existing institutional constraints, and factors that can preclude or enable these reforms.Using the motto ‘institutions...
Blog
Data is the key to informed decision-making in today's rapidly changing world. As nations strive to address complex economic challenges, data-driven insights have become indispensable. South Africa is no exception, facing issues like declining GDP per capita, sluggish productivity growth, and rising...
– How collaboration can help
UNU-WIDER has worked for several years in collaboration with sub-Saharan African revenue authorities to facilitate the analysis of digital tax data. During a visit to Kampala, Uganda this year, we asked our colleagues how this collaboration has been useful to them. How do they see their role going...
Working Paper
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– The case study of a foreign-owned mining operation in Tanzania
Based on a case study of an anonymous mining company in Tanzania, this study assesses the implementation of the local content (LC) regulations and guidelines in the country. The analysis focused on the key LC aspects of the direct workforce (employment and training), procurement of goods and...
In Mozambique, Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda, and elsewhere, UNU-WIDER is on the ground to support national development plans, collect and create data for economic analysis and national and international policy processes, and build the capacity of government officials to develop national economies...
Report
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This report documents TAZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Tanzania Mainland. It describes the different tax–benefit policies in place, how the microsimulation model picks up these different provisions, and the database on which the model runs. It concludes with a validation of TAZMOD results...
– Evidence from an international research conference
This policy brief draws on the studies presented at the International Research Conference on the Effectiveness of Development Cooperation on 17–18 November 2022, in Brussels, Belgium, jointly organized by UNU-WIDER and the European Commission (DG INTPA) under its capacity as the leading entity of...
Working Paper
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We study the effectiveness of social protection benefits in reducing income and consumption poverty in five sub-Saharan African countries—Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia—in normal times and times of widespread economic crisis. Using tax–benefit microsimulation models with...
Working Paper
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– Empirical evidence
This paper examines trends and determinants of gross domestic savings in Tanzania using data for the period 1990–2020. The autoregressive distributed lag approach is employed to empirically analyse the short-run and long-run relationships. There has been a fairly stable increase in the domestic...
Working Paper
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In a bid to realize its development aspirations, Tanzania has made concerted efforts to increase public investment, particularly in the last decade. A significant proportion of these investments are financed by contracting debt, manifested by the rapid accumulation of public debt, especially...
Across sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries there are striking differences in citizen willingness to pay taxes. For example, in Mali, Senegal, and Ghana, around half of those surveyed ‘strongly agreed’ that the government has the right to make people pay taxes, but in Cote d'Ivoire this figure is...
Journal Article
– A decomposition approach
Redistributive systems in Africa are still in their infancy but are expanding in order to finance increasing public spending. This study aims at characterising the redistributive potential of six African countries: Ghana, Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Ethiopia and South Africa.These countries show...
Working Paper
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Expansion of social protection reach among workers in the large informal economy represents a persisting and thorny challenge in the development context. In Mainland Tanzania, several domestically led policy reforms have been introduced to increasingly expand social protection for informal workers...
Working Paper
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– Exploring past policy trajectories and simulating future paths
Tanzania has expanded its social protection framework significantly over the past decade, but the country continues to grapple with important gender inequalities. This paper examines, first, the evolution and effects of Tanzania’s social protection policies since the 2000s, from the perspective of...
Report
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View the latest TAZMOD country report here. This report documents TAZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Tanzania. It describes the different tax–benefit policies in place, how the microsimulation model picks up these different provisions, and the database on which the model runs. It concludes...
Working Paper
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Tanzania has experienced relatively strong and stable economic growth accompanied by social stability over the past two decades. The country is also pursuing an ambitious development plan with significant employment objectives. For development to be fully inclusive, specific attention must be paid...
Just over seven months ago the United Nations convened its 26th Climate Change Conference (COP-26) in Glasgow, with the world nervously emerging from the pandemic. Even before that, energy prices were already ticking up — a trend that accelerated when Russia invaded Ukraine. The global response to...
Working Paper
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There has been much discussion on climate change and its adverse effects on agriculture, including excessive loss of food production. In regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, where agriculture is the major source of household livelihoods, shocks in weather patterns affect farmers’ expectations of farm...
The first of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to end poverty in all its forms, everywhere. The monumental task — a long-time dream of humanity — is followed by 16 more goals under the 2030 Agenda. Though they are all interlinked, to even contemplate their achievement requires a deep well...
Why is it that in some countries the parents of a bride pay dowry, whereas in some others the groom has to pay for the bride? What is the impact of different traditions on women’s lives? Marriage payments, as well as dowry or bride price, are still in use in 75% of countries globally. Bride price...
Journal Article
This study analyses the impacts of indirect tax benefits policy reforms on income distribution and poverty in Tanzania by applying a standard static microsimulation model TAZMOD v1.8. The simulations model two indirect tax reforms involving changes to the excise duty and value‐added tax rates on...
Working Paper
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– Driving for gender-inclusive development?
In July 2020, the United Republic of Tanzania gained the status of a lower-middle-income country. This came after two decades of significant social policy reforms and transformations in the country’s economic structures. This paper explores social policy trajectories in Mainland Tanzania with a...
Working Paper
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– Why low capacity, discursive legitimacy, and twilight authority matter
Tanzania received significant global attention for its COVID-19 response during the first year of the pandemic. It did not share pandemic statistics, require masks, implement lockdowns, or close borders; it questioned testing and vaccine efficacy; and it emphasized traditional medicines as a cure...
Working Paper
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– Examining policy developments and opportunities through a gender lens
Tanzania has undertaken important health sector reforms in the new millennium, and the most recent Health Sector Strategic Plan (2021–26) lays out ambitious targets to achieve universal health coverage. Yet, women in Tanzania continue to face significant barriers in accessing healthcare and the...
– And how to deal with them
Children from poorer families in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda face a double disadvantage in their opportunity to access learning: not only is the overall quality of education low in these countries, but they also attend relatively poorer-quality schools. This column reports new evidence on how...
Millions of Africans lost their jobs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, but state social security systems were of little help to people who lost their income.This is the conclusion of a study conducted by the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research, UNU...
– Taxation in developing countries can be improved through collaboration
Finland aims to raise the amount of its development assistance to 0.7% of GDP, and this goal has good grounds. But how can we make sure that the countries receiving the donor funding will not stay dependent on the external aid for a long time?Just like rich countries, in the long run developing...
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that African tax and social-benefit systems are currently ill-equipped to protect households from sudden income losses. Meaningful progress will require policymakers to reduce the size of the informal sector and improve the design and financing of social-protection...
– How five African countries fared
The number of people living in poverty around the world is estimated to have increased by half a billion people due to the COVID-19 crisis. The African continent has suffered at least US$100 billion in economic costs in 2020, measured by the reduction in trade revenues and financial flows due to the...
Are there enough tax payers to generate the revenue needed by governments to reduce poverty? How adequate are the social security arrangements that already exist? Anyone who has started to probe these issues will know that the answers to such questions can be hard to pin down. This is why the...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Dead end or stepping-stone?
Despite rapid economic growth in recent decades, informality remains a persistent phenomenon in the labor markets of many low- and middle-income countries. A key issue in this regard concerns the extent to which informality itself is a persistent state. Using panel data from Ghana, South Africa...
– Evidence from risk-based tax examinations
Risk-based approaches are becoming commonplace for tax authorities as a tool for enforcement. Improvements in technology, technological adoption and in some cases machine learning, hold great promise for finding the taxpayers who are most likely to avoid taxes, thus improving the detection of non...
Working Paper
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– A microsimulation analysis on selected African countries
Although the effect of fiscal drag is well studied in the industrialized world, empirical evidence from developing economies remains limited. Against this backdrop, this study aims to explore the effect of fiscal drag on income distribution and work incentives. To this end, the study employs...
The next decade is a make-or-break for the world’s most vulnerable countries. To tackle the unprecedented confluence of COVID-19, climate, and economic crises, new solutions are desperately needed. Scientific research is one key for finding long-lasting solutions. Least developed countries (LDCs)...
Tanzania, similar to most sub-Saharan countries, reported its first COVID-19 cases in March 2020. While GDP estimates suggest that the economy was less hard hit than in other African countries, some sectors have nevertheless experienced negative growth. Even with contained GDP contractions in 2020...
In summer 2020 the SOUTHMOD team set out, with partners, to analyse the impact of government policies on protecting households from getting poorer and avoiding societies from becoming more unequal. Now we are releasing a cross-country comparative study that analyses the distributional effects of the...
Working Paper
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– A reflection of practices, policies, and legislation
This paper assesses the participation of female traders, safety factors, and existing policies and legislation in the informal sector in Tanzania. Primary data were obtained from 11 in-depth interviews, 10 focused group discussions, and 236 structured questionnaires. The primary data were...
Working Paper
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In this paper, we investigate the working conditions of the young women working as assistants in the food vending sector in Tanzania using interviews and focus group discussions which are supplemented with quantitative survey. Data were collected in the municipalities of Nyamagana and Ilemela in...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from Tanzania
While technical assistance and increased use of ICT in the area of tax administration have been regarded to hold considerable promise for greater revenue collection, the evidence on how these activities work in the real-world circumstances of developing countries is scant. The paper attempts to fill...
Working Paper
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This paper analyses the distributional effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and related tax-benefit measures in 2020 in a cross-country comparative perspective for five African countries: Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. We first estimate the impact of the crisis on disposable incomes...
Tanzania is, together with Kenya and Uganda, one of the founding members states of the East African Community (EAC), a regional intergovernmental organization which nowadays consists of six partner states in the region. Since the revival of the new EAC in 2000, EAC Customs Union (EAC-CU) in 2005...
– What difference do they make?
The socioeconomic fallout from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the fore discussions on domestic resource mobilization (hereafter DRM). Raising domestic taxes has monopolized policy attention, however, given the attendant and ensuing needs in developing countries, raising savings rates...
Working Paper
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– Imputing employment income in Tanzania and Zambia
The quality of data on employment income is explored using Tanzanian and Zambian household survey datasets. The extent of missing and implausible income data is assessed and four different methods are applied to impute missing or implausible values. The four imputation methods are also applied to...
At the UNU-WIDER offices here in Helsinki, Finland, the summer holidays are almost upon us. Looking at the list of new UNU-WIDER publications, it is easy to see how much we accomplished this past year, despite the many constraints faced. By my latest count, we have 25 new working papers and 12 new...
Working Paper
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This study examines the interaction between formalization of the artisanal and small-scale mining subsector and the regulation of negative environmental impacts in Tanzania. Formalization generally seeks to move the artisanal and small-scale mining subsector to legal status. Using documents, reviews...
Working Paper
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Effectiveness of strategic environmental assessment in promoting sustainable development in Tanzania
This paper examines the extent to which strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is implemented in Tanzania and whether its implementation is in line with generally practised procedures/criteria. Out of 17 completed SEA, eight cases were purposively selected and assessed by applying an analytical...
Researchers and policymakers have long asked whether rural households in Africa diversify their income to spread risk or by seizing opportunities to increase their earning potential. Long-term research in Tanzania shows that diversification is more often a choice rather than a necessity, with the...
Working Paper
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This paper uses the latest Tanzania labour force survey—the Integrated Labour Force Survey—and a censored bivariate probit model to analyse gender differences in labour force participation and gender bias in formal wage employment in urban Tanzania. Our findings indicate that, compared to men, women...
Working Paper
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Although Tanzania has made notable progress in enhancing access to financial services, the gender gap in financial inclusion persists. This paper examines gender disparities in financial inclusion in Tanzania using descriptive and regression analyses. While the advent of mobile phone money services...
Informality is a pervasive phenomenon in the labour markets of developing countries. Two billion workers, representing 61.2 per cent of the world’s employed population, are in informal employment. Emerging and developing countries account for more than 93 per cent of total global informal employment...
Diversifying income sources is an important livelihood strategy for households in low-income countries. Having several sources of income helps in increasing total income, and in spreading the risks. New findings on the benefits of income diversification from Tanzanian households can inform policy...
The private sector and enterprises have a key role to play in the development of the Tanzanian economy. This Policy Brief provides insights and solutions that could offer business sectors the vital policy support that they need to develop and grow. Linkages with large firms provide a possibility for...
Working Paper
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– Application of a structural gravity model
By measuring the effects of forming and joining a regional integration bloc using an augmented structural gravity model, this paper finds that the East African Community (EAC) and EAC Customs Union have significantly enhanced Tanzanian trade into EAC markets. Kenya has continued to be the main...
Working Paper
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– Facilitating inclusion, organization, and rights for street vendors
In spite of having some intensive national strategies to address poverty, Tanzania lacks a coherent national strategy to ensure sustainable livelihoods for those working in its informal economy, of which street vending is an important sector. Based on qualitative, in-depth data collected through...
Report
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View the latest TAZMOD country report here. This report documents TAZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Tanzania. This work was carried out by University of Dar es Salaam in collaboration with the project partners in the scope of the SOUTHMOD project. The results presented in this report are...
Among the many things said about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is the description by the President of the UN General Assembly’s 70th session, Mogens Lykketoft, that the SDGs represented ‘an unprecedented statistical challenge’. In addition to the 17 goals, there are 169 targets and 232...
Working Paper
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This paper explores the distributional impact of lowering the value-added tax rate for standard-rated items in Tanzania Mainland. Using a static tax-benefit microsimulation model—TAZMOD—which is underpinned by data derived from the Household Budget Survey 2017/18, reductions in value-added taxes...
Working Paper
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This study sought to examine the main constraints to manufacturing export competitiveness in Tanzania. Using panel data for the period 1997–2018, the study established that supply-side factors dominate demand-side factors in explaining manufacturing export competitiveness. Specifically, the results...
On 17 February 2021 the Groningen Growth and Development Centre (GGDC) and UNU-WIDER Economic Transformation Database (ETD) will be launched. The new database provides crucial information on changes in the economic structure of economies across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Preliminary findings...
Economics researcher Aimable Nsabimana shares the relevance and inspiration behind his recent work with UNU-WIDER on climate change and human development in Tanzania. How can research contribute to the wellbeing in Africa? In 2019, I spent some months at UNU-WIDER in Helsinki as a Visiting Scholar...
Working Paper
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What drives livelihood diversification among predominantly rural households in developing countries and how can welfare-enhancing patterns be established and sustained in the long run? A large literature has focused on whether income diversification is a means of survival or a means of accumulation...
Technological catch-up is bringing new asynchronies to development pathways. What does this mean for employment, globalization, and inequality? A chapter in the volume The Developer’s Dilemma, which traces trends of structural transformation, offers a framework for understanding the emerging global...
– Global versus regional value chains
As COVID-19 ravages international trade and production, policy-makers are shifting their sights from global value chains (GVCs) to regional value chains (RVCs) as pathways to industrialization. This blog presents evidence from the textiles and apparel sector in Tanzania, which shows that while GVCs...
– How can natural resources support inclusive growth in Africa
For a growing number of countries in Africa the discovery of natural resources is a great opportunity, but one accompanied by considerable risks. There is an extensive literature linking natural resource dependence to poor economic performance. One cause is that resource-abundant economies tend to...
Working Paper
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This paper examines the impact of the government input subsidy—the National Agriculture Input Voucher—on farmers’ production and welfare in Tanzania as well as the factors that influence agricultural production in the country. The analysis is based on the Living Standards Measurement Study...
Working Paper
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– Evolving trends during the transition to a low carbon future
The first objective of this paper is to update earlier assessments of mineral dependence in lower-income countries. In 2018, the mining of metals and coal continued to be an important contributor to the economies of several low- and middle-income countries. As in our previous calculations of the...
– Transnational growth corridors as a solution
Comprehensive harmonization is crucial to eliminate inefficiencies that hamper free movement of goods and services in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. Territorial collaboration between metropolitan clusters and rural areas connected by transport corridors is a potential key...
Working Paper
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The implementation of a Single Customs Territory by East African Community countries is intended to ease the movement of goods across borders by cutting costs and time through harmonization and simplification of customs documents, removal of burdensome customs procedures, and automation of customs...
Working Paper
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– The case of Tanzania
Rising public debt in sub-Saharan Africa remains a matter of concern. We provide an analysis of public debt and debt sustainability in Tanzania, focusing on external debt. Though current and previous analyses using the IMF-World Bank debt sustainability framework indicate low risk of public external...
Working Paper
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This paper uses three waves of Tanzanian National Panel Surveys (2008/09, 2010/11, and 2012/13) to construct a panel from 3,676 households that appear in at least two waves to explore the effect of income diversification on household welfare measured in terms of food consumption. The analysis...
Special economic zones (SEZ) in Africa are generally regarded as underperforming relative to their peers in the rest of the world. To explain this underperformance and to support success in the future it is important to analyse the key features and what is lacking in the design of African special...
Working Paper
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– Gender and innovation
Innovation generally takes place in male-dominated industries. A gender gap might therefore exist. This study used data from the 2015 Tanzania Firm-Level Skills Survey to investigate the gender innovation gap between female-owned enterprises and male-owned enterprises. A non-linear Blinder–Oaxaca...
Working Paper
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– Can linkages with large firms spur the growth of SMEs in Tanzania?
A recent strand of literature on small and medium enterprise (SME) development identifies linkages with large firms as some of the enablers of development and competitiveness. However, there is a dearth of empirical studies on the topic. In this study, we assess the extent and determinants of...
– The framing of social protection policies in Tanzania
Until 2010s, social protection was not high on the political agenda in Tanzania. Yet in 2012, the government approved the implementation of a nationwide conditional cash transfer programme. What led the government to commit to a policy area that was otherwise of low priority? The development of the...
Working Paper
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With recent changes in the global economy, policy makers are increasingly turning from global value chains to regional and national value chains as drivers of structural transformation in the global South. This paper examines economic and social upgrading in the Tanzanian textile and apparel sectors...
As COVID-19 slows in developed countries, the virus’s spread is speeding up in the developing world. Three-quarters of new cases detected each day are now in developing countries. And as the pandemic spreads, governments face juggling the health consequences with economic ones as this shifts to...
Working Paper
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– Barriers to entry and the role of African multinational corporations
The growth of African multinational companies in Southern and East Africa in recent decades brings with it a great opportunity for development of productive capacity in the region and greater regional integration. This study identifies three emerging multinationals in the region—Trade Kings (from...
Working Paper
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This paper reviews comparative approaches to key issues in economic regulation in four countries of the Southern African Development Community, and how this has been reflected in outcomes in terms of competition, prices, access, and innovation in telecommunications services. In this paper...
Working Paper
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Low levels of broadband penetration combined with poor quality of services present a challenge to growth and development in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This paper performs a comparative analysis of the competitive dynamics of telecommunications markets in four SADC countries...
Working Paper
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The provision of a universal old age pension is increasingly recognized as an important instrument for strengthening and extending social protection. A growing number of emerging economies, including East African countries, are introducing universal old age pensions to guarantee at least a basic...
Working Paper
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– The cases of Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe
The objective of this research is to assess the extent to which export processing zones in Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe integrate the Sustainable Development Goals in their implementation and operations. We focused on four Sustainable Development Goals—gender equality, decent work...
Working Paper
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– Is success influenced by design attributes?
Special economic zones (SEZs) in Africa are generally regarded as underperforming relative to their peers in the rest of the world. This study focuses on the design features of the SEZ in Africa that may help explain this underperformance. Literature was reviewed to identify the key design...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from Tanzania
In this paper, we examine the relationship between childhood exposure to adverse weather shocks and nutritional and health outcomes of children in Tanzania. Using household panel data matched with spatially disaggregated data on weather shocks, we exploit the plausibly exogenous variations in the...
Background Note
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– The case of Kenya
The COVID-19 pandemic has now spread to over 180 countries, including several countries in sub-Saharan Africa.1 Kenya reported its first COVID-19 case on 13 March 2020. By 31 March the number of confirmed cases had risen to 59, with over 70 per cent of infections in Nairobi. As at 22 April 2020, the...
Blog
– Working together to achieve the SDGs
'It was great to have enough time to discuss each paper. I received useful and frank feedback. The topics are relevant for everyone. I noticed a healthy gender balance.' These were some of the comments expressed at our research review workshop in Dar es Salaam in February, hosted by our partner...
Blog
Tony Addison is the first in his family not to become a miner. He has decades of experience in development economics and economic reform in developing countries. It was a rainy day in London at the turn of the 1980s. Twenty-year-old Tony Addison had been wandering around the streets when he found...
Over the past three decades, there has been notable progress on certain key dimensions of gender equality. Almost universally the gender gap in education has been narrowed and commitments to secure equal access to employment have advanced. However, the rate of progress towards gender equality in...
– Natural Resources and Industry in Africa
For a growing number of countries in Africa the discovery and exploitation of natural resources is a great opportunity, but one accompanied by considerable risks. Countries dependent on oil, gas, and mining have tended to have weaker long-run growth, higher rates of poverty, and greater income...
Working Paper
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– A feasibility study
This working paper explores the feasibility of developing a tax and benefit microsimulation model in Zanzibar using the EUROMOD microsimulation software. We review Zanzibar’s tax and benefit arrangements and the potential household survey dataset that would underpin the model, and we conclude that...
– Reducing the impact of global oil prices
Analysis of World Bank data ranging from 1990–2017 indicates that increases in global oil prices would have negative effects on the economic growth of SADC, especially Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Mauritius. Given the high reliance of Southern African countries on crude oil imports, barrel...
– Actors, institutions and dynamics
Since the mid-1990s, there has been in Africa something of a ‘quiet revolution’ in poverty reduction strategies with the proliferation of social assistance programmes that entail cash transfers to the poor. The past two decades have also been characterized by a series of important political...
There is an increasing interest in the analysis of economic inequalities in least developed countries. This is not only the result of a general social preference for equality, but also the consequence of a growing sense that highly unequal societies may distort the functioning of a country...
Working Paper
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– Dead end or steppingstone?
Despite rapid economic growth in recent decades, informality remains a persistent phenomenon in the labour markets of many low- and middle-income countries. A key issue in this regard concerns the extent to which informality itself is a persistent state. Using panel data from Ghana, South Africa...
Social protection has attracted increasing interest in developing countries in recent decades and policies have been initiated in all developing regions. When countries build up their social protection systems, they need reliable information and tools on how the systems should be designed. They also...
– Global trends and data challenges
Inequality—both vertical (between individuals and households) and horizontal (between groups)—is a core concern in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. However, despite considerable attention to horizontal inequality in both research and policy, there are notable gaps and weaknesses in our...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– A 25-Year Perspective
Part of Journal Special Issue
Horizontal inequality in the Global South
Working Paper
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We examine the extent to which two of Africa’s leading gold mining economies, Ghana and Tanzania, have adopted transformative local procurement policies to enhance backward linkages from the minerals sector. We assess the impact that evolving legislation in the gold industry has had on...
Working Paper
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Access to mobile phone has increased substantially over the last decade in sub-Saharan Africa. The evidence suggests that increased use of mobile phones in the region has upgraded the market prices received by producers for their cash crops, but so far there is limited knowledge on labour market...
View the latest TAZMOD country report here. This report documents TAZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Tanzania. This work was carried out by University of Dar es Salaam in collaboration with the project partners in the scope of the SOUTHMOD project. The results presented in this report are...
– Reflections on my first six months as Director
My first six months as Director of UNU-WIDER have been busy, enlightening, and rewarding. We’ve launched a new work programme, with flagship projects focused on a cohesive research base addressing key SDGs; I’ve also worked on fostering partnerships to cement the Institute’s place as a valuable...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– The case of four African countries
Part of Journal Special Issue
Inequalities in the least developed countries
Social protection systems in Africa are still in their infancy. As countries develop their systems, it is crucial to look at how existing tax-benefit programmes affect poverty and inequality and how countries can learn from each other’s systems.Microsimulation models can be used to study existing...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
SOUTHMOD: Modelling Tax-benefit Systems in Developing Countries
Journal Special Issue
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Social protection has attracted increasing interest in developing countries in recent decades and policies have been initiated in all developing regions. Cash transfer policies are already in place in many African countries, but their coverage is still limited, although it is expanding. Many of the...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– The Case of Social Benefits in Tanzania
Part of Journal Special Issue
SOUTHMOD: Modelling Tax-benefit Systems in Developing Countries
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Simulating Universal Pensions in Ecuador, Ghana, Tanzania and South Africa
Part of Journal Special Issue
SOUTHMOD: Modelling Tax-benefit Systems in Developing Countries
Working Paper
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This paper investigates whether Southern African Development Community countries that are vulnerable to changes in oil prices could instead substitute oil and petroleum products with biofuels and gas from within the region. A pooled mean group estimator was used to determine the impact of oil prices...
– What can help?
The ability to raise revenues from taxes – called “fiscal capacity” – is a crucial aspect for the functioning of any state. Being able to tax citizens, and collect revenues efficiently, is a cornerstone of state formation and survival. Secondly, greater fiscal capacity implies greater access of the...
Working Paper
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– An application of TAZMOD
This paper analyses the impacts of indirect tax policy reforms on income distribution and poverty in Tanzania by applying a standard static microsimulation model TAZMOD v1.8. The simulations model two indirect tax reforms involving changes to the excise duty and value-added tax rates on alcoholic...
At the end of last year, I filmed a lecture that will be part of a massive open online course (MOOC) on industrialization in Africa. The course is based on a joint research project between the Brookings Institution and UNU-WIDER called Jobs, poverty and structural change in Africa. The topic of the...
Working Paper
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– The impact of tax-benefit systems in Africa
Redistributive systems in Africa are still in their infancy but are constantly expanding in order to finance increasing public spending. This paper aims at characterizing the redistributive potential of six African countries: Ghana, Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and South Africa.These...
– UNU-WIDER provides open access to a wealth of information
The question ‘why is there so little industrialization in Africa?’ has been a key focus of UNU-WIDER researchers and research partners for the last decade. Many Asian economies started their industrialization processes from conditions similar to those that African countries are experiencing today...
This week I attended the 28th Africa Industrialization Day at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Even sympathetic readers may reasonably ask, why hold another African Industrialization Day at all? The short answer is Africa needs structural change to grow, to create jobs, and to reduce...
Working Paper
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– Country study—Tanzania
There are large volumes of gas offshore Tanzania, which has raised hopes of a boom. But those hopes look set to be disappointed. A boom would depend on there being a sizeable flow of revenue to government from producing and exporting gas. This paper sets out the scale of the gas, and the array of...
Working Paper
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In this paper we study the impact of tenure security on rural to urban migration of household members over the age of 15. Using three waves of the Tanzanian National Panel Survey (NPS) data, we show that tenure security is associated with lower probability of migration in rural Tanzania. This result...
Working Paper
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This paper assesses the effects of public policies on income taxes and benefits in six African countries. The comparative analysis focuses on the distribution and composition of incomes and assesses the effect of these policies on inequality and poverty. The results are based on newly developed...
The tax-benefit microsimulation model developed for Mozambique, MOZMOD, has proved to be valuable in analysing the impacts and budget implications of a new policy proposal in Mozambique. The importance of the tool has also been recognized in the government. Tax-benefit microsimulation helps to...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– A gender perspective
Part of Journal Special Issue
Female Autonomy and Women’s Welfare
The collection of articles in this symposium speaks to the issue of female autonomy and women's welfare within households, making use of rich data from a variety of developing countries including Brazil, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, India, Indonesia, Senegal, Tanzania, and Zambia.
– (of Colpensiones, Colombia’s public pension and social security administrator) – Juan Villa
Four years ago, in 2014, Juan Villa spent three months at UNU-WIDER in our PhD Fellowship Programme. I spoke to him on a sunny September afternoon while he was back in Helsinki for the Think development - Think WIDER conference about his journey since his studies, and about what’s next. Juan grew up...
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