UNICEF and the School of Social Sciences seek to support national statistical systems in the United Republic of Tanzania

Cardiff University’s School of Social Sciences and UNICEF are collaborating to help the United Republic of Tanzania generate policy-relevant analysis to monitor child poverty and material deprivation.

Together with Oxford University’s School of Global and Area Studies, the report could enable Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar to report on progress towards meeting key national development targets and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

9 November 2022 marked the Office of the Chief Government Statistician (OCGS) and the Zanzibar Planning Commission’s (ZPC) launch of the State of Zanzibar’s Children reports.

In 2020 it found that 47% of children in Zanzibar experienced monetary poverty, non-monetary poverty, or a combination of both.

The report provides unprecedented insight into trends and patterns of child poverty and deprivation in Zanzibar.

School of Social Science’s Senior Lecturer Dr Marco Pomati said, “Our analysis shows that compared with 2010, children in Zanzibar in 2020 benefit from considerable improvements in household dietary diversity and are more likely to live in homes made from appropriate materials. They’re also more likely to be enrolled in school and less likely to be behind in their education.

“However, a significant proportion of Zanzibar’s children remain exposed to high levels of deprivation of important basic needs.

In a joint foreword for the report, Salum Kassim Ali, Chief Government Statistician in OCGS, Rahma Mahfoudh, Executive Secretary of ZPC, and Shalini Bahuguna, UNICEF Representative, said, “We hope that this evidence will inform the development of plans, policies and programmes that address and aim to improve the well-being of children and achieve the SDGs in Zanzibar.”

Diego Angemi, Chief of Social Policy at UNICEF Tanzania, added, “One of today’s key takeaways centered on our collective commitment is to put this analysis to good use by working closely with OCGS and ZPC to inform sector-specific planning and budgeting efforts.”

Luisa Natali, Research and Evaluation Manager at UNICEF Tanzania, noted, “The excellent collaboration with the research team went beyond the preparation of the report, as Cardiff University staff also provided a thorough training in child multidimensional poverty to the statistical offices of Zanzibar and Mainland Tanzania.”

The project involved close collaboration between colleagues in Zanzibar and Tanzania.

Dr Pomati,who led the project for Cardiff University, and Professor Shailen Nandy ran a one-week intensive workshop on poverty analysis for staff from the Zanzibar Office of the Chief Government Statistician and the National Bureau of Statistics (Tanzania Mainland). The launch of a partner report on the State of Mainland Tanzania’s Children will follow shortly.

Find out more by reading the State of Zanzibar’s Children in-depth report.