DEEP Tanzania Challenge Fund awards grants to four further research projects

The four new winning projects are: 

• Jaah Mkupete, at the Mkwawa University College of Education, for a project that will examine whether secure land rights alone are enough to alleviate poverty or if they need to go hand in hand with a well-functioning credit market and improved access to agricultural technical information
• Beatrice Montano and Salma Emmanuel, working with ESRF, for research which aims to test the hypothesis that participating in democratic school elections fosters a sense of civic duty in young people, building their confidence and making them more likely to engage in local politics as adults.
• The University of Dar Es Salaam and Women Leading Change for Better Lives (WOLBEL), for a project which will use data analysis to understand the effects of climate change on poverty at household and ward-level and to assess the impact of financial inclusion and social protection measures on the relationship between climate change and poverty
• Mkwawa University College of Education, for research which will provide evidence on existing trends in multidimensional poverty and the impact of social protection programs, including conditional cash transfers, on multidimensional poverty in Tanzania

These join the six projects which were announced in October:

• Global Water Partnership Tanzania, with a project training AI to produce data on extreme poverty distribution using modern water-access indicators as a measure
• Francisco M. P. Mugizi at Mkwawa University College of Education, with a project examining whether membership in self-help groups, offering financial support, is successful in protecting agricultural workers against financial shocks
• University of Dar es Salaam, with a project investigating how climate variability is hampering young people’s participation in the agricultural sector
• The Open University, with a project looking at whether the emotional and societal challenges that can push caregivers of children with disabilities into poverty are mitigated if mothers are members of a supportive collective
• Zanzibar Research Center for Socio-economic Research, with a project which is creating a digital dynamic poverty registry for mapping and identifying households living in poverty
• Ifakara Health Institute, with a project examining the geographical and financial barriers to healthcare for those living in poverty and how lack of access to healthcare can exacerbate ill-health and act as a driver for poverty

As with the first six projects, the newly awarded projects fill existing evidence gaps and support ongoing work tackling extreme poverty and were approved by a National Steering Committee, made up of government representatives, academics, donors and members of civil society in Tanzania.

Pamela Shao, Senior Consultant and Oxford Policy Management Tanzania Country Manager said: ‘It’s wonderful that all ten of the DEEP Challenge Fund grants have now been awarded. The diversity of the projects showcases the innovation of researchers in the country who are harnessing data and evidence in different ways to get right to the core of how we can effectively tackle poverty in Tanzania.’

Tanzania was chosen to be the first focus country for the DEEP Challenge Fund due to both its challenges around severe poverty and a political and policy environment which has a strong focus on poverty alleviation and an openness to new and innovative ways of tackling the issue. Additionally, 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.

DEEP Challenge Funds are currently also running in Ethiopia and Bangladesh. Applications for the DEEP Ethiopia Challenge Fund are now closed and successful applicants will be announced shortly. Applications for the DEEP Bangladesh Challenge Fund closed on 16th February and the evaluation process is in progress.

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About DEEP: Data and Evidence to End Extreme Poverty (DEEP), is a consortium of the Universities of Cornell, Copenhagen, and Southampton led by Oxford Policy Management, in partnership with the World Bank’s Development Data Group and funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. DEEP’s focus countries are Tanzania, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Madagascar, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria.