Zanzibar achieved a modest reduction of 4.5 percent in its basic needs poverty rate and a one percent decrease in extreme poverty between 2010 and 2015, with the urban Unguja island being the main driver behind these reductions, according to the latest World Bank Poverty Assessment for Zanzibar.
With a total population of about 1.3 million, the Zanzibar archipelago consists of several islands. Unguja, the largest of them has a population of about 900,000, followed by Pemba with over 400,000 people, per the 2012 census.
The World Bank assessment which analyses data from the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar’s Household Budget Survey (HBS) as well as the Integrated Labor Force Survey (ILFS), reports that the basic needs poverty rate in the archipelago stands at 30.4 percent in 2015 when the assessment was conducted, compared to 34.9 percent in 2010. Unguja is the main urban center and it registered the most decline from 26 percent in 2010 to 18.4 percent in 2015. This downward trend in poverty was also only reflected in other urban centers and rural areas related to Unguja with a decline of 11 percent for the former and 3 percent in the latter.
“The contribution of educational levels of household heads and their spouses to the reduction in Unguja is significant as it underscores the importance of strong investment in the human capital of citizens to eradicate poverty,” said Bella Bird, the World Bank Country Director for Tanzania, Malawi, Somalia and Burundi. “Nevertheless, the negative poverty trends for Pemba highlight the urgent need to address the wider issue of regional inequality by driving to ensure more equitable access to basic services across the country.”
While there were modest changes in Unguja, the assessment reveals contrasting trends for Pemba, with the island’s poverty rate increasing from 48 percent to 55 percent between 2010 and 2015. Eighty-three percent of the Pemba population resides in rural areas, underscoring the underdevelopment of the island’s urban sector as the core contributor to the increased poverty.
The report which was launched today in Stone Town shows the poverty reduction in Unguja was occasioned by increases in returns to household businesses; improved productivity in the nonfarm sector and in agriculture; as well as improvements in the levels of education achieved by heads of household and their spouses. And, while having larger families was a constraint, their burden appeared to have been offset where spouses were engaged in nonfarm activities from which they experienced returns. Improvements in ownership of assets, particularly mobile phones, also contributed to the reduction in poverty and welfare improvement.
Despite the positive trends in pay-offs from educational attainment in Unguja’s urban areas, the report authors note that unemployment of educated youth in these areas remained very high. This discrepancy could be related to the quality of education in Zanzibar which has been declining with the substantial expansion of the system’s capacity over the past decade, similar to trends witnessed on Mainland and most of Sub-Saharan Africa. On the other hand, the analysis of the relationship between education returns and poverty reduction focused around the educational attainment of household heads who were more likely to be older than the population’s average and therefore more likely to have received an education of better quality.
Among other key findings, the assessment shows improvements in households’ living conditions, but despite these positive changes, a large part of the Zanzibar population remains clustered around the poverty line and could easily fall back into poverty at the slightest shock. Conversely, small increases in their incomes could bolster a significant proportion of people over the poverty line.
“There is a lot of work ahead to improve the living standards of all people in Zanzibar,” said Carolina Sanchez, Senior Director for Poverty and Equity at the World Bank. “The report released today can form the foundation for more effective development programs that can improve the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable, especially those whose situation has gotten worse in recent years.”
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