Meaning of Life Skills
Meaning of Life Skills
Meaning of Life Skills
To assist the community to reduce poverty by encouraging people to start small scale
businesses i.e. food vendors
To provide technical advice to the people on how to use small scale loans in profitable
ways
THE ROLES OF THE GOVERNMENT IN DEVELOPMENT
Government can be defined as institution formed by the people in a certain country in order to
provide leader ship services, to promote economic and social development and to protect the
interests of the people.
Therefore in any country the government performs the following roles:
To make and implement different economic policies which will be used to promote
economic activities such as agricultural activities, industrial activities trade, tourism and
transport and communication. Therefore the government through different ministries
make and implement economic policy in Oder to promote development in a given sector
To make and regulate the international policy so as to promote and improve foreign trade.
Foreign trade is the main source of foreign currency also foreign trade maintains the
equilibrium balance of payment of a country.equilibrium balance of payment is the
amount of foreign currency which a government earns through export trade
To make implement and protect laws of the state by using the organ of the central
government and the local authorities this can help the country to maintain peace and
order
To promote implement and protect human rights by providing freedom to the people
morally ,socially, economically and politically this can help all the people to participate
in political social and economic activities in the country
To control political activity throughout the country in order to maintain political stability,
political tolerance and democracy in the country.
POVERTY
This means the non-sustainable economic system which dominated by in sufficient provision of
goods and services to the people.
They so called Developing nations are the victims poverty e.g. Tanzania.
Poverty is a social and economic problem
There are two levels of poverty which are: -
1. Individual (personnel) poverty
This is a situation where by a person is unable to afford the basic needs like food, shelter
and clothes.
2. National poverty
This is a situation whereby a country is economically depending on external assistance to
finance the basic needs of the people and the expenditure of the government
Therefore the general meaning of poverty is
TYPES OF POVERTY
There are two types which are known as:
1. Absolute poverty
This is a type of poverty which is dominated by in sufficient resources in the whole
country that reached at a level where the victims no longer live as human beings. Usually
under absolute poverty the per capita income is less than 1 US Dollar per day and per
head. This is the highest degree of poverty found in rural areas in the developing
countries.
2. Relative poverty
This is another type of poverty whereby the resources are in sufficient in some parts of
the country normally under relative poverty; the people’s income is more than 10 US
Dollars per head and per day. This type of poverty prevailing in urban areas in the
developing countries.
Therefore, types of poverty based on comparison availability of resources and the
people’s income
INDICATORS OF POVERTY
Poverty is mainly noted through the following indicators: -
1. Low per capita income: Of a country is the average income of the people of a given
country in a particular year. It is calculated by diving the total annual income of the
country in by the population of that country. The total annual income of a country is also
referred to as the Gross National Product (GNP) or the Gross Domestic product (GDP). It
is always given in monetary terms.
4. Unwillingness of settler’s farmers to meet some of the costs on the scheme settler
wanted the government to meet all costs but it did (could) not do so as a result the
scheme collapsed.
5. Misuse of settlement skill funds especially after the departure of experts from Israel. The
cooperative unions misused the funds of their settlement scheme. For example TANU
Youth League (TYL) schemes failed one.
IMPROVEMENT APPROACH
When the transformation approach failed the government introduced another strategy of
development called Improve.
The improvement approach was based on persuasion rather than or compulsion.
Therefore the man objectives of the improvement approach were: -
1. To establish self-governing peasant communities with little interference from the
government.
2. To expand production in rural areas and to fund markets for their products. As a result
co-operative union was established.
3. To prevent exploitation of peasants by in trust worthy buyers hence peasants are
encouraged to sell their products in co-operative unions.
4. To allow easy provision of social services in rural areas so as to improve their living
standard.
5. To make villages the nuclear (base) of national development national defense.
Problems of Improvement Approach
The improvement approach did not achieve much due to the following problems.
1. Lack of education
Most of the peasant’s illiterate (unskilled) people Hence it was difficult to adopt changes.
2. Destruction of Forest and reserved areas
Pay peasant when they were established new farms. As a result the programme
encouraged forced station.
3. The educated people refused to participate in agriculture activities. They thought that
agriculture education to all peasants was below their dignity and should be left to
uneducated peasants. As a result they concentrated on few progressive farmers. Therefore
fear income was very low.
4. The government failed to promote agriculture education to all peasants as a result the
concentrated on few farmers. Therefore the impacts were very low.
FRONTAL APPROACH
This was a 5 year plan of development under Arusha declaration which operated on Ujamaa
villages. On 6th November 1973. The government of Tanzania mainland introduced Ujamaa
village programme was based on self reliance which means the local people’s effect should be
used to eradicate poverty in a given society. But some people resisted moving from the tradition
villages to Ujamaa villages; however they were forced moved.
The objectives of Frontal approach were as follows: -
2. To simplify the provision of social services to all people at cheap cost. E.g. primary
education, health service, water supply and transport service especially in rural areas.
4. To eliminate the middle man in purchasing cash crops from the peasants by buying the
crops at very low price so that the co-operating unions were given authority to purchases
crops from the peasants.
5. To act as lowest level of government. The Ujamaa village was given power to discuss
and decide about the social and economical development. Therefore they formed several
committees such as political committee, economic committees, security committee and
social welfare committee.
EFFECTS OF FRONTAL APPROACH
1. Millions of people lived in Ujamaa villages people
2. Many people come closer to social services i.e. schools, hospitals, security than it was
before.
3. Government campaigns and directives reached too many people easily than it was before.
4. The national solidarity integrity and stability increases
NEGATIVE EFFECTS
1. The private shop collapsed due to introduction of the village shops and co-operative
soaps. As a result some people were affected economically.
2. Created shortage of goods i.e. salt, sugar, kerosene, soap etc. Therefore corruption was
used in order to get goods from the co-operatives and village shops.
3. They are demolition of houses and public utilities in traditional village when people
where being forced to move to Ujamaa village
4. The farms with permanent crops were abounded when people were being forced to move
to Ujamaa village.
Therefore frontal approach accelerated poverty
1. Elimination of primary school fees in government
The government has eliminated the fees in order to ensure that many children especially
from poor families get access of primary education.
2. The communities and other stock holder through self health schemes are required to
construct classrooms, teacher’s house, health centers, water facilities and maintenance of
roads in rural area.
3. Creation of more employment opportunities by promoting informal sectors (private
sectors) and mobilizing foreign and local inverters.
EFFECTIVENESS OF STRATEGIES OF POVERTY ALLEVIATION IN
TANZANIA
The degree of achievement or effectiveness strategies of poverty alleviation in Tanzania can be
assessed as following
1. Promoting self reliance policy or self employment the government has not succeeded
much due to many obstacles which included low capital, lack of conducive environment
and low level of science and technology.
E.g. in Dar es salaam most of the small scale traders do not have specific areas for their
activities as a result several time conflict between the small scale traders and the city
soldiers takes place.
2. In promoting modern science and technology in production Tanzania has fairly done well
especially in urban areas where industries are concentrated. However in rural areas still
people use local tools and traditional ways in production. Therefore the app of modern
science & technology is still very low.
3. In controlling the rate of population growth Tanzania has been successful in urban areas
where many people get access to proper medical services and family planning education
but in rural areas. Due to remoteness and absence of enough health centres the rate of
population growth is still very high.
4. In promoting economic development Tanzania has been successful in securing loans and
grants from international monetary fund (IMF) world bank (WB) and from other
developed countries but due to difficulties in condition put by donors has made Tanzania
to be under heavy debts usually when the donors provide loans to the government of
Tanzania they put large interest which leads to increasing of the National debtors.
5. Dept exemption, cancellation and rescheduling has been helping the government of
Tanzania to reduce the burden of foreign debts for example in 2000 the donors country
cancelled the debt of Tanzania government and the government was advised to used that
money to improve economic and social development in the country.
6. In increasing the life expectancy of the people. Tanzania has introduced many
programmes which were aimed to reduce the spread of diseases e.g. provision of free
medical services to the victims of HIV/AIDS, elderly people and the campaign against
malaria, by providing medicated mosquito net, however the services provided could not
access all people but based on urban areas.