Tanzania Economic Performance from Pre-Independence to the Current Period: Did We Pursue the Right Way?

This study has gone a long way in showing the trend of economic performance before and after independence. The study aimed at shedding light on the kind of economic trend that Tanzania experienced from the Arusha declaration--a declaration that paved the way for Tanzanian socialism under the Ujamaa policy--all along to the current policy reforms. The study was a case study design focusing on Tanzania economic performance before and after independence. The methodology that was used involved reviewing various documents and publications that explain the trend of economic performance that cover the period under review. In a way, a descriptive analysis of the information/data from those sources took a centre stage. The results show that after independence some achievements were sustained in terms of economic growth but were then eroded by the negative impacts that emanated from waging a war against Uganda in 1978. By the time the war ended in 1980, Tanzanian economy was hardest hit. It was due to this deteriorating economic performance that Tanzania launched policy reforms under the name of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs). In the late 1980s and early 1990s some economic achievements that had far reaching effects to the rural people were sustained following the implementation of the reforms. Since then, Tanzania further pursued other policy reforms that ranged from Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) all along to National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (NSGRP). Indeed, all these policy reform programmes have indeed influenced economic growth that is not inclusive because a sector like agriculture that employs over 75 percent of Tanzanians has been left aside and as such the economic growth that has been sustained has not trickled down due to poor distributional dynamics. To this end, agriculture has been hit the hardest because it has been excluded in contributing to the economic growth. In a way, the rural people are increasingly becoming poorer. The study concludes that in order to have a balanced reforms strategy, equal distribution of the national cake is of paramount importance. This can only be achieved if economic growth is inclusive of all sectors of the economy and in particular inclusive of the agricultural sector that employs the majority of Tanzanians.