Browsing by Author "Urassa, J. K."

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    A gendered analysis of climate variability and change impacts and adaptations in semi arid area farming systems and natural resources management
    (Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Mitigation (CCIAM) Programme, 2013) Ombol, C.; Urassa, J. K.; Mbwambo, J. J. S.; Mattee, A. Z.; Mamiro, D. P.; Kabotc, S. J.; Matata, L. M.; Synneag, G.
    Climate change and climate variability is increasingly threatening the livelihoods of many Tanzanians especially those living in semi-arid rural areas. The most affected are those; with low incomes, less food, poor access to health services, unstable energy supplies, and living in fragile natural ecosystems. Generally, women and men contribute differently to climate change; likewise, they are affected differently and react differently to its impact. The overall objective of the study was to assess the impact of climate change on rural livelihoods' and how households in semi-arid areas of Tanzania adapt based on gender. The study was conducted in Iramba and Meatu Districts. The study adopted a Sustainable livelihood Approach (SLA) developed by DFID (1992) in the analysis of climate change impacts and households' adaptation. Data was collected using qualitative methods such as focus group discussions and key informant interviews, informal interviews and observations. Findings from the study show that, climate change impacts affect almost everybody in the studied communities; however, differences by gender exist. These findings thus suggest that adaptation to climate change impacts vary across genders due to differences in roles and responsibilities, power relations and access to and control over resources.
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    A review of post-harvest milk losses in Tanzania’s milk sector: lessons from production to consumption
    (Tanzania Journal of Agricultural Sciences, 2023) Lugamara, C.B.; Urassa, J. K.; Massawe, G. D.
    Tanzania has engaged in various policies, strategies and programmes in order to increase production, processing and marketing infrastructure for milk and milk products and minimise animal product losses. However, not much is known in relation to post-harvest milk losses. Therefore, the review paper aims to establish from empirical literature the extent of Tanzania’s post-harvest milk losses and the causes in relation to efforts made by the government to minimise the same. To achieve the above, the authors used various databases to locate documents reporting on Tanzania’s post-harvest milk losses whereby 1605 documents were identified and screened remaining with 82 that were deemed relevant. Thereafter, an assessment of the 82 documents led to only 12 being included in the critical review, with ten being dropped due to either being similar or using the same data. Therefore, in the end, only two documents are captured in this paper. Generally, the review shows that there is insufficient empirical information on Tanzania’s post-harvest milk losses with the most recent study having been conducted almost 19 years ago. In addition, the study’s scope was quite limited, covering a sample of 66 respondents and a narrow geographical coverage of only three regions (i.e. Coast, Dar es Salaam and Morogoro). Furthermore, the study used the rapid appraisal approach. Therefore, there is a need for disaggregated information on Tanzania’s extent of post-harvest milk losses at various nodes of the milk value chain so as to inform policy makers and other stakeholders interested in curbing the same. Keywords: Milk losses, milk supply chain, post-harvest losses.
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    Access to reproductive health services and factors contributing to teenage pregnancy in Mtwara Region, Tanzania
    (2017) Dunor, H.; Urassa, J. K.
    Generally, adolescents/teenagers sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs are largely unmet in developing countries despite this group’s size. This paper examines teenage girls’ accessibility to reproductive health services and factors contributing to teenage pregnancy. The study on which the paper is based adopted a crosssectional explanatory design and was conducted in Mtwara Region, Tanzania covering four secondary schools. Teenage girls in the four secondary schools were randomly selected to participate in the study. Data was collected using questionnaires, focus groups discussions and key informant interviews. A total of 156 people participated in the study. Quantitative data was analyzed using SPPS while qualitative data was analyzed using content analysis. Generally, results show that teenage pregnancy is a major problem in Mtwara and the attributing factors include poverty, culture, desire for money, peer pressure, lack of education on reproductive health issues and poor parental support. Results also show that teenagers in Mtwara lack access to youth friendly reproductive health services. Additionally, the findings show a disparity in terms of access to reproductive health services (RHS) between rural and urban teenage girls: those in the urban area had relatively more access compared with their rural counterparts. It is therefore concluded that access to reproductive health services for teenage girls is a serious challenge in Mtwara region. It is hereby recommended it is recommended that households be empowered to earn sufficient income to provide for their families, particular emphasis should be put on non-farm income generating activities. It is also recommended that youth friendly SRH services be established in the study areas; doing so will improve youth’s access to the same
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    Assessment of local government's social accountability for poverty reduction in Tanzania
    (2016-12-10) Marcossy, A. M.; Urassa, J. K.
    Social Accountability is an aspect of governance that links and interlinks other aspects of development and governance, In Tanzania, various forms of social accountability monitoring in have been implemented by CSOs, these include; the holistic st)~al accountability monitoring (SAM) and Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys, PETS, Others are Community Score Cards, Budget Analysis, Citizen Jury, Local needs analysis and Social Auditing. These initiatives fulfill a number of functions, as they enable individuals and user groups at community level to provide feedback and exercise their voice vis-a-vis central, local government and service providers. The main objective of this study has to establish the relationship between social accountability and poverty alleviation in a few selected Tanzanian local councils. Specifically, the study aimed at; describing the forms of social accountability in the selected local government authorities (LGAs), to determine the status of social accountability among the selected LGAs, to empirically link social accountability with identified poverty indicator and to examine the public's perception on social accountability and improvement of people's livelihoods. The study employed a cross-sectional research design whereby data were collected at one point and time. A total of320 respondents were randomly selected from the selected wards and villages using a multi-stage sampling technique from Mwanza City Council (MCC), Kinondoni Municipal Council (KMC), Kibaha Town Council (KTC) and Handeni District Council (HDC). In addition, forty and ten other individuals were involved in focus group discussion (FGDs) and key informant interviews respectively. The study used both primary and secondary data; the former was collected through the use of interview schedules and checklists. Specifically, the study employed Social accountability monitoring tools which included; the Social Accountability Cycle and the Question-Information-Analysis (QIA) tools. Data collected using the QIA were analyzed by the help of participant stakeholders; the CSOs, Businesses, LGA officials, a handful of policymakers and other participants. Generally, the study shows that SAM positively empowers local people not only to engage their governments but, does also influence decisions and the confidence of public officials in service provision. However, there are setbacks in enhancing social accountability in local governments in Tanzania. One such challenge is access to Government information which is inconsistent and preferential. This can further be deduced as showing a strong potential for linking poverty reduction initiatives with social accountability in local government.
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    Causes and management of land conflicts in Tanzania: A Case of farmers versus pastoralists
    (2016) Massawe, G. D.; Urassa, J. K.
    Land conflicts are on the increase in many parts of Tanzania. Though the same existed even in the planned economy era 1961 to 1985, there has been an escalation of thesame since Tanzania opted for the.free market economy in the mid-1980s. While land corif!.icts are experienced by all walk<; of life and people engaged in different economic activities, those between farmers and pastoralists have been more dread.fit! leading to loss of life and property in many instances. The aim of this paper is twofold: firstly, to examine the factors that have contributed to the causes and persistence of .farmer-pastoralist conflicts in Tanzania; and secondly, to examine the strategies that have been applied in managing .farmer-pastoralist conflicts. The paper contains a review that is organised into three .fundamental sections. After introduction, Section Two discusses the literature that analyses the conflict by drawing on the social, historical and economic causes. In Section Three, the papei· introduces some of the key framework<; used within the peace and conflict literature, particularly in reference to the dffering notions of conflict management, conflict resolution and conflict transformation that could be applied in solving or managing conflicts between .farmers and pastoralists in Tanzania for the good of both groups. The paper makes two conclusions: firstl y, the farmer-pastoralist conflict tends to be best explained through an interpretive lens that sees many processes impacting on the highlighted issue. Whilefarmer-pastoralist corifl.icts have been produced by social, historical, economic and discursive factors; the former three factors have dominated most of the analysis within the literature. Secondly, there is no single solution for managing the conflicts. However, to effectively manage the conflicts communities need to adopt a multidimensional approach that takes into account a range of the contributing factors .
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    Climate change and its variability on crop production in semiarid areas of Iramba and Meatu Districts, Tanzania
    (African Developmen) Urassa, J. K.; Nombo, C. I.; Kabote, S. J.; Mamiro, D. P.; Mbwambo, J. S.; Mattee, A. Z.; Matata, L. M.; Synneåg, G.
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    Engaging men in women’s economic empowerment in Butiama district, Mara Region, Tanzania
    (IGI Global) Sikira, A. N.; Matekere, T.; Urassa, J. K.
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    Engaging men in women’s economic empowerment in Butiama district, Mara Region, Tanzania
    (IGI Global, 2018) Sikira, A. N.; Matekere, T.; Urassa, J. K.
    The chapter addresses women’s income poverty using men as active participants in empowering women economically. Butiama district was used as a study area, using 120 women and their husbands who were beneficiaries of the programme dealing with loan provision. As an outcome of the study, men had little participation in women’s economic activities, hence, women’s economic empowerment was at medium level. Unlike men, women’s income was used for fulfilling basic needs of the family, therefore, had little impact on their economic empowerment. By conclusion, men as decision makers have high impact on women’s economic empowerment. It is recommended that, awareness creation among men would enhance their participation in empowering women. Improvement of women’s access to and control over production resources would improve their income. It is recommended that lobbying and advocacy approaches should be applied to enable women’s control over the production resources.
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    Factors associated with post-harvest milk losses at collection centres and among vendors in Tanzania
    (Tanzania Journal of Agricultural Sciences, 2023) Lugamara, C. B.; Urassa, J. K.; Massawe, G. D.
    Tanzania has engaged in various interventions to improve the countries food and nutritional security among which is the creation of a good environment for increased milk production, collection, storage, marketing and consumption. However, milk losses continue to occur along the country’s milk value chain (4.4% and 7.0% at the collection centres and the milk vendors respectively). The study on which the paper is based assessed factors associated with post-harvest milk losses among milk collectors and vendors in Tanzania. A cross-sectional research design was adopted whereby 35 individuals who were in-charge of milk collection centres (MCCs) and 52 milk vendors were selected for the study covering the period June 2021 to September 2022. Generally, the results show that milk was mostly lost through spoilage (2.7% & 3.5%), spillage (1.9% & 3.3%) and contamination (0.1% & 0.2%) at the MCCs and vendors respectively. In addition, Generalised Linear Mixed Model results show that characteristics of the milk transporter (Adjusted Coefficient (AC) = -3.519; 95% Confidence Interval (CI): -5.752--1.286), market stability (AC = -9.525; CI: -18.092--0.958), season (AC = -0.19; 95% CI: -0.37--0.010) and awareness/knowledge on post-harvest milk losses (AC = -0.274; 95% CI: -0.490--0.058) were negatively and significantly associated with post-harvest milk losses. Therefore, respondents’ characteristics, market stability, season, milk handling facilities and awareness/knowledge of post-harvest milk loss were the main drivers of post-harvest milk losses (PHMLs). Therefore, there is a need for the livestock extension officers in Tanzania to create awareness but, also train milk collectors on how to reduce PHMLs. In addition, there is a need for collective investment in milk infrastructures and other logistics if milk losses by the above-mentioned are to be reduced. Lastly, the Government needs to create a conducive environment that enhances the availability of quality and affordable milk handling equipment to allow the storage and transportation of milk that minimizes its losses.
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    Factors contributing to irregular migration: A case of Kasulu District, Tanzania
    (2017-06) Magweiga, R. S.; Urassa, J. K.
    Despite the fact that irregular migrants (IRMs) have often been facing a lot of challenges in sustaining their livelihood in Kasulu District, yet in recent years, there has been an increase of IRMs from within and outside Kasulu District in search of casual labour in the local community. The study therefore was undertaken in four villages in Kasulu, Kitanga, Kagera-Nkanda, Mvugwe and Nyachenda. Specifically, the study aimed to determine the driving factors of irregular migration, to assess smallholder farmer’s attitude towards IRMs, and finally, to identify how the IRMs are affected by their interaction with smallholder farmers in Kasulu District. The study on which the paper is based used a cross- sectional research design whereby data was collected at one point and time. The study employed random sampling, purposive and snowball sampling techniques to get 120 respondents. Data were collected using a questionnaire, key informant interviews, focus group discussions and direct observations. Quantitative data were analysed using statistical package for social science (SPSS) whereby descriptive statistics were determined. Qualitative data were analysed using content analysis. The results show social, cultural, economical and political factors are responsible for the irregular migration observed in Kasulu District. It is thus recommended that, the immigration department and other security organs working along the border should establish several entry posts either permanently or mobile along the country borders to deter IRMs and ease visa issuance process for those migrants wishing to enter the country legally.
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    Factors influencing maize crop production at household levels: A case of Rukwa Region in the southern highlands of Tanzania
    (2015-03-05) Urassa, J. K.
    Production of staple food occupies an important part in Sub-Saharan Africa’s agricultural production. Maize crop in particular is the most important staple food in this area. The article mainly examines households’ socio-economic characteristics affecting maize production in Rukwa in the context of the market reforms carried out in Tanzania in the mid 1980’s. Rukwa region is one of Tanzania’s most reliant maize producers. The article explores the importance of maize to household’s crop production, its production levels and the determinants of its productivity. A number of specific issues are explored including the importance of factors such as farm size, education, and access to key inputs such as seeds, fertilizers and agricultural extension services. The study on which the article is based uses data collected from three districts of Rukwa. The findings showed that maize crop continues to play an important role in most households’ livelihood. However, the crop production levels were low. Education was observed to be an important factor in raising yields, suggesting that non-agriculture policies may also be important for improving productivity and welfare of farmers. Despite the importance of maize crop to household livelihoods, several constraints were reported to hinder its productivity including access to fertilizers, improved seeds and other chemical inputs necessary for higher production, and extension services. Therefore, efforts need to be taken by both the local and central government to raise households maize productivity and hence increase the possibility of improving their well-being.
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    Farm and off-farm linkages: The effect of off- farm employment on farm inputs and labour allocation in Kilombero valley, Tanzania
    (College of Social Sciences and Humanities) Msinde, J. V.; Urassa, J. K.; Nathan, I
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