Minister calls on experts to simplify poverty measures

Dar es Salaam. Statisticians have been urged to carry out a thorough study on basic indicators of measuring poverty.

This comes at a time when the country has begun the process of the 2017/18 Household Budget Survey (HBS).

Finance and Planning minister Philip Mpango said here yesterday that it was important to come up with easy poverty measuring modalities, which also fit within the country’s economic conditions.

He was speaking at the International Conference on the Use of Tanzania Panel Survey and Living Standard Measurement Survey.

“Experience has shown that basic indicators such as people living below poverty line at less than $1.9 per day and basic needs poverty line are not well known to many communities in sub-Saharan Africa.”

According to him, the lack of knowledge has resulted in policymakers and other people having different interpretations of poverty.

Presenting a statement on the State of the National Economy in the National Assembly in June last year, Dr Mpango said though growth had averaged seven per cent for the past years, the 2012 Population Census and the 2012 HBS showed that various regions were ranked differently in poverty levels.

Regions with poorest populations include Kigoma where 48.9 per cent of its population live below the poverty line and Geita which has a poor population of 43.7 per cent. Other regions and the percentages of the poor populations in brackets include Kagera (39.3), Singida (38.2) and Mwanza (35.3).

However, some MPs protested that putting Coast Region in the same group with Dar es Salaam was wrong the former was not developed.

In apparent reference to the incident, Dr Mpango said yesterday the resistance his report received from some legislators last year stemmed from the lack of knowledge on how such figures are arrived at.

World Bank country director Bella Bird said all important issues arising from the conference, including the use of relevant data in measuring poverty would be taken into consideration.

“There is a great need to review different modes of interpreting poverty. Many people are failing to understand their levels of poverty because we use jargons such as latent measures of poverty. We have to simplify them.”