Repoa’s advice on fight against poverty

Dar es Salaam. A research organisation, Policy Research for Development (Repoa), said yesterday that Tanzania must focus on boosting productivity of sectors that employ majority of the country’s population if the country’s economic growth figures are to have meaning in stamping out poverty.

Repoa said yesterday that though agriculture employs the lion’s share of the working age population, the sector’s productivity remains low and as a result, it fails to raise farmers’ incomes.

“What we have seen during the past years is that technology, especially the telecom sector, has been growing at a good rate, but that sector’s contribution to employment is low. This is why we need to improve those areas that employ many people,” Repoa executive director, Dr Donald Mmari said. Dr Mmari was speaking during an occasion to announce the 24th Research Workshop that is scheduled to be held in Dar es Salaam from April 10.

The workshop is themed: “Local Economic Development: Unpacking potentials for accelerated transformation of Tanzania”.

Dr Mmari said this year their research day will focus on contribution of local government authorities in speeding up development, adding various research papers will be presented.

According to him, in recent years, it has seen a significant contribution of councils in building health centres and school.

He added the research papers that will presented will expound on how councils can speed up the development.

“We want the local authorities to identify the opportunities that are available in their areas and find strategies that will help small businesses to generate more income,” he said.

For his part, the director of strategic research, Dr Kamal Msami, said more than 300 people are expected to attend the research conference.

He said during the meeting 11 participants will present various research papers that intend to help on how local authorities can improve development.