Youth, poverty and inequality in urban Tanzania

Promoting young people’s well-being through a greater understanding of their social and economic needs.

Urban contexts and youth populations are relatively unexplored territories of huge theoretical and policy relevance in Sub-Saharan Africa. Tanzania’s future is increasingly urban and predominantly young, propelling urban youth to the forefront of its development challenges.

Urbanisation, however, has been accompanied by high levels of poverty, insecurity and inequality. Little is known about what this means for young people as they seek to negotiate the path to adulthood.

In exploring the impact of rapidly expanding youth populations in the context of the urbanisation of poverty and its implications on the social and economic lives of Tanzania’s youth, this research breaks new ground in exploring new perspectives and new interpretations of what it means to be young and searching for livelihoods in the city amidst endemic poverty, inequality and limited institutional support.

It will identify the strategies youth deploy in a context of urban poverty for survival and advancement, and how these are influenced by age, gender and geographic location.

This work is being led by Dr Nicola Banks, Lecturer in Global Urbanism and Urban Development.

Dr Nicola Banks

Podcast

Nicola Banks: Understanding youth poverty in Arusha, Tanzania

Key academic publications

Nicola Banks, in press, ‘Good Life Never Comes Like Dreams: Youth, Poverty and Employment in Arusha’ in, D. Potts (Ed.) Tanzanian Development in an African Perspective James Currey, forthcoming in early 2019.
Nicola Banks, 2016, ‘Youth poverty, employment and livelihoods in Arusha, Tanzania: Social and economic implications of living with insecurity in Arusha, Tanzania’ Environment and Urbanization 28(2) (forthcoming in October 2016).
Nicola Banks, 2015, ‘Understanding youth: towards a psychology of youth poverty and development in Sub-Saharan African cities’, Brooks World Poverty Institute Working Paper No. 216.
Nicola Banks, Carl Death, David Hulme, Helen Underhill, Dereck Arubayi and Paul Skidmore, 2015, ‘Is there a “learning crisis” in Africa? Education and development post-2015’. The Davies Papers: Africa Series #8.
Banks, N. 2018 ‘Promoting employment, protecting youth: BRAC’s Empowerment and Livelihoods for Adolescents programme in Uganda and Tanzania’ in D. Lawson and D. Hulme (Eds.) What works for the Poorest in Africa, Practical Action Publishing, pp89-104.

Nicola has presented findings from this research at:

‘Tackling the youth employment crisis in urban Tanzania: Building Inclusivity or Enhancing Agency?’ Paper presented at the Sustainability and Development conference hosted by the University of Michigan in collaboration with World Development journal, Nov 9-11^th 2018.
‘Developmental Spaces? Development psychology and urban geographies of youth in Tanzania’, paper presented at the Development Studies Association Annual conference on Global Inequalities at the University of Manchester, June 2018.
‘Poverty and Urban Worlds of Work: Insights from Bangladesh and Tanzania’, guest seminar at the University of Sheffield’s Urban Studies and Planning Seminar Series, 25^th April 2018.
‘Understanding youth poverty in Arusha, Tanzania: Capturing economic, social and psychological dimensions’, guest seminar at the University of Manchester’s GDI Seminar Series, development@Manchester, 20^th April 2016.
‘Good Life Never Comes Like Dreams: Youth, poverty and employment in urban Tanzania’, guest seminar at the Overseas Development Institute, 16 November 2015
‘Poverty, unemployment and youth ‘at risk’ in Tanzania…and what can we do about it?’, paper presented at the international conference The Seventh African Population Conference: Demographic Dividend in Africa: Prospects, Opportunities and Challenges. Organised by the Union for African Population Studies and the Department for Social Development, Pretoria, South Africa, 30^th November to 4^th December 2015.
‘Youth, poverty and employment in urban Tanzania’, paper presented at the international conference Youth – Participation – Impact organised by Retrak, Safe Child Africa, Article 26 and The University of Manchester, at The University of Manchester, 2015.

Impacts

Young people are overlooked in national policies and programmes, and those specific to young people are often based on inaccurate understandings. Knowledge and research on young people’s needs is therefore critical to more effective policy-making, programme design and targeting.

This research in Tanzania (2013-2016) builds upon a Ugandan study that was well-received by NGOs, UNICEF and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and used by the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development during revisions to Uganda’s National youth policy. Our research will seek similar impact, working with participatory youth development NGO, Tamasha Vijana, to produce a national report on urban youth.

Early findings were used to present young people’s visions for a poverty-free city in Tanzania at The University of Manchester’s Policy Week, exposing our work to a range of geographers, planners, and other social science practitioners.

Following on from her research, Nicola started an innovative savings project with young motorcycle drivers in Arusha that aimed both to take her findings to action and demonstrate a sustainable and adaptable model for ‘what works’ in youth development. The project aimed to triple the incomes of group members and have a strong transformative impact on their lives, with benefits spreading to a new group once the first cycle is finished. More details can be found on the project - which won the 'outstanding contribution to social enterprise (emerging’) award at the 2016 Making a Difference Awards - in the GDI blog, as well as details of the outcome of the motorcycle initiative.