DEEP Tanzania Challenge Fund Dissemination Workshop

On 21 October, ten research projects, selected for funding through the Tanzania DEEP Challenge Fund, presented their findings to researchers, policymakers, development partners and other stakeholders at a dissemination workshop held in Dodoma.

The DEEP Challenge Fund is a demand-led model which awards grants to locally led research tackling extreme poverty and responding to country-defined priorities. The Fund has supported researchers in Tanzania, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Madagascar to investigate priority questions identified by stakeholders via small- to medium-sized grants.

At the workshop the Challenge Fund researchers presented the key findings of their projects, including the implications for policy and practice:

Prof. Dr. Esther Ishengoma et al. found that temperature variation is the climate-related variable that has the largest impact on poverty and that access to credit mitigates this effect

Dr. Twahir M. Khalfan et al. presented an actionable blueprint for a unified, dynamic social registry in Zanzibar, including a practical roadmap for implementation

Dr. Onesmo Selejio et al. found that structural barriers, rather than climate variability, have the greatest effect on young people’s productivity, poverty dynamics and participation in agriculture

Frank Anderson et al. found that satellite and street imagery plus non-traditional water indicators can be used to train a generative AI model to detect poverty hotspots

Dr. Mkupete Jaah et al. found that secure land rights have little impact on household poverty levels unless combined with access to credit

Dr. Solfrid Raknes et al. found that membership of a school-based caregivers collective resulted in increased household income, reduced disability stigma, and better child attendance, communication, independence and peer relationships

Dr. Cornel Joseph et al. found that the Tanzania Productive Social Safety Net reaches the most vulnerable demographics, but operational improvements and moving beyond a cash-centric approach could maximise its success in reducing multidimensional poverty 

Dr. Peter Binyaruka found that poor households are less likely to seek healthcare and more likely to face catastrophic health expenditures, that health resources are concentrated in wealthier regions, and that inequalities in service utilisation between wealthier and poorer regions are widening

Prof. Dr. Francisco Mugizi et al. found that savings and cooperative societies and self-help groups require targeted support to successfully mitigate the impact of negative income shocks on small-scale farmers.

The ongoing work of Salma Emmanuel et al. focuses on whether there is a link between involvement in democratic processes at school and civic participation in later life.

Alongside the Challenge Fund findings presentations, Anya Breen, DEEP consultant, gave an overview of DEEP’s Tanzania Evidence and Gap Map. This tool is a visualisation of all the published poverty research in Tanzania, searchable by cross-cutting themes, regions and sub-populations. It is a vital resource for getting research findings to decision makers and for identifying where future research funding should be targeted.

Anya Breen said: ‘One of the strengths of the Challenge Fund is that it has been designed to support projects that fill existing research gaps. The DEEP Tanzania Evidence and Gap map will be an invaluable tool in creating similar initiatives in the future that will support targeted research to have maximum impact.’

Dr. Charles Sokile, country director of Oxford Policy Management Tanzania Office and co-chair of the National Steering Committee (NSC), said: ‘It has been wonderful to hear about the work that has come out of the Challenge Fund and I’d like to congratulate all the researchers here. I want to thank the National Steering Committee which played a crucial role in identifying policy priorities, selecting the successful projects and supporting the researchers in their work, and to urge policy makers to utilise the evidence generated for planning and decision making in their work to tackle extreme poverty.’

Professor Fortunata Songora Makene, Executive Director, Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF) and NSC member, said: As part of a group of stakeholders with expertise in poverty research in Tanzania, we came together in December 2023 to identify and agree on a selection of thematic focus areas where important evidence gaps existed in the Tanzanian context. It is exciting for us as a National Steering Committee to see the priorities we identified back then translated into real research projects, led by Tanzanian researchers.