The state and social service delivery in developing societies : a case study of Tanzania

Abstract

Old age poverty in developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be a development problematic that is rarely discussed. Social security is to some little extent discussed, but non-contributory pensions are rarely debated because education, health, and agriculture, are considered the region’s more critical policy priorities, and lack of demographic pressure in general. Tanzania, one of the world’s poorest countries with older people representing the majority of the poor, has employment-based pension plans for social security provision. The methodological approach utilized in this research is empirical, based on a systematic review and secondary analysis of qualitative and quantitative data sources on political, demographic, economic, social, poverty, and national income datasets. Inefficiency of resource allocation is identified in this research as negatively affecting Tanzania’s domestic policies on economic growth, wealth re-distribution and poverty reduction. Social security is a universal need recognized as a basic human right, in both the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations (UN) conventions. Despite UN and World Bank-prescribed millennium development goals (MDGs) and poverty reduction programs respectively for Sub-Saharan Africa, findings in this research indicate that Tanzania has no functional ageing policy for older people’s social protection. Over half of Tanzania’s national budget is donor-funded, denying the state resource allocation ownership, therefore rendering it precariously unable to independently formulate policies for its development objectives, outside the donors’ prescriptive development frameworks. Tanzania’s social policies fail to target older people, creating a social protection gap and destitution. Tanzania’s resource allocation is inefficient because decisions are routinely made on the basis of regional political patronage, towards the youth as a voting bloc, and towards health, education, agriculture, and environment sectors, considered critical by donors. For old age social protection institutional framework to evolve, Tanzania’s social policy and practice gaps should be mitigated through more efficient resource allocation policies.