Dissertation submitted to Mzumbe University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master’s degree of Business Administration in Corporate Management MBA-CM of Mzumbe University
The general objective of this study is to assess whether the Gender Equitable Local Development (GELD) Programme has improved women’s livelihoods in Morogoro Municipal, Tanzania. The study interviewed 96 respondents. Data collection used questionnaires and interviews. Data analysis was based on descriptive statistics, frequency analysis and percentages. Data were presented using texts, Tables and Figures to illustrate findings. The study found that areas of focus of GELD mentioned in the study included social, financial, human and physical capital. GELD sought how to utilize the mentioned capital to empower women’s livelihood. It was also found by the study that GELD used ways of training, capital giving, saving mobilization and creation of networking among women in order to empower women livelihood. The challenges identified were lack of education among women, religion fanaticism, women feeling shy to utilize their capabilities and poor women’s degree of financial freedom. The study concludes that the GELD targeted the appropriate areas of social, financial, human and physical capital to empower women livelihood.
The study also concludes that GELD invested its resources of money, time, human, natural resources in the right areas through training, provision of capital, saving mobilization and creation of networking among women in order to empower women livelihood. Furthermore, the study concludes that GELD was not working with the perfect society as there were challenges facing GELD efforts. The study recommends to the government and other organs to creating properly planned, well managed markets and facilitating access to markets to marginalized women entrepreneurs through effective allocation of trading sites; providing education and training on business skills and legal rights to provide women with knowledge on how they can run their business and protect themselves from risks; assessing viable means of micro-financial support to women entrepreneurs and other areas so as to make them participate in economy creation for their betterment and the betterment of the country; and GELD should extend its services to women throughout the country as most of the women in Tanzania are faced with similar problems.