Factors Contributing to Lack of Soft Skills among Tanzanian Higher Learning Graduates

Despite the critical role played by soft skills in ensuring employability and career development among graduates, evidence suggests a huge lack of these skills among graduates in Tanzania. Against this backdrop, this paper explored factors contributing to lack of soft skills among higher learning graduates in the country and recommended effective strategies of ensuring acquisition of soft skills by the graduates.  The paper critically reviewed documents related to factors contributing to lack of soft skills among the graduates in Tanzania. The study revealed that lack of soft skills among graduates fundamentally emanates from poor curriculum which does not consider soft skills right from primary to higher learning level, ineffective educational policies and reforms that do not give emphasise on soft skills, incompetent trainers, inadequate teaching and learning facilities as well as lack of career guidance programs in academic institutions. These factors should be holistically addressed in a bid to equip graduates with soft skills necessary for employability. To ensure effective acquisition of soft skills by gradates, there should be regular curriculum and education policy review to include aspects of softs kills, allocating adequate budget for teaching and learning infrastructure, empowering higher learning trainers on soft kills and ensuring relevant teaching methodologies to enable educators equip students with soft skills

Constraints to accessing Business Development Services and Support (BDSS) among the urban street vendors in Dar es Salaam Tanzania

Purpose: This study examined constraints to accessing Business Development Services and Support (BDSS) among the urban-based informal street vendors in Dar es Salaam- Tanzania.Design/Methodology/ Approach: This study employed qualitative methods with purposive and simple random sampling techniques being used to obtain 110 vendors and officials from various organizations who participated in this study. The researcher employed in-depth interviews, observations and the review of different documents. Collected data was later analysed through thematic analysis run through MAXQDA 10.Findings: Findings revealed several issues constraining informal vendors to access BDSS services. These included financial constraints, lack of BDSS organisations and professionals, lack of relevant policies and regulations, vendors' inability to abide by policies and regulations, lack of vendors' involvement in BDSS decision-making, lack of physical address, vendors' informal and illegal status and lack of statistics on the street vendors.Research Limitation/Implication: This study mainly focused on street vendors in the urban settings of Dar es salaam and specifically in the three municipalities of Ilala, Kinondoni and Ubungo. Practical Implication: Mitigating the BDSS constraints among the vendors will guarantee an increase in sales and profitability in street vending hence protecting vendors' livelihoods and contribution to national development.Social Implication: The study recommends improvement in policy options related to alleviating BDSS-related constraints among vendors including empowerment of vendors on financial matters as well as being provided with reliable sources of business capital, knowledge and skills.Originality / Value: Moreover, this study is more adds to more innovative and inclusive strategies for empowering urban street vendors on BDSS, considering that previous works on BDSS have not provided rich solutions to street vendors to access Business Development Services and Support. While some of these studies are quantitative, some other studies have only focused on only registered businesses leaving the informal street vendors unattended

Exploration of Male Partners’ Gender Based Violence by Female Partners in Dar es Salaam-Tanzania

This study explored Gender Based violence of male partners by female partners in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, using the qualitative approach. It employed a prolonged field engagement through in-depth interviews. While Dar es Salaam Region consists five municipalities, this study was conducted in Ilala Municipality owing its strategic location in the city with big populations and large social interactions. Through snow ball sampling technique, 25 men were sampled as respondents and thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. The study established that males experienced a variety of gender based violence including physical, psychological and economic violence. Factors contributing to gender-based violence included lack of awareness and negative perception toward gender-based violence services. Because of the patriarchal nature of the society, men who experience GBV did not report the incidents since they felt being embarrassed and undermined by the community's social structure. Based on conclusions, the study recommends that men should strive to get empowered economically, considering that there has been a positive correlation between men’s economic powerlessness and violence against them by their partners. Affected men should be sensitized on the availability and significance of various institutions dealing with GBV; they should consult the institutions whenever they fall victim to GBV. Finally, there is a need for more male representation in gender desks since gender desks in many police stations currently lack equitable men representation

Development of an Operational Satellite-Based Flood Monitoring Model for Tanzania

Timely information during water related disasters is of utmost importance for flood preparedness and risk reduction. Real time observation and monitoring of flooded areas is an expensive and time-consuming exercise. Satellite remote sensing is a quick and affordable approach that can be used for concurrent floods detection at different scales. This is important as it facilitates timely information for emergency response to disaster management departments, even in scarcely instrumented catchments. This study presents a novel approach for flood tracking using satellite technology to map flood affected areas. An open-source water detection algorithm is developed that employs readily available satellite images and the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. Dar es Salaam and Singida regions in Tanzania were used as the case study for validation of the proposed approach. Use is made of Sentinel-1 satellite images and GEE coding. The after-flood tracking GEE code was validated with the physical flood extent markers and after-event flood extent survey points of the regions provided by the Ministry of Water (MoW). The findings reveal that the approach supports mapping flood extent areas by giving promising results after the satisfaction from validated data. Relevant parameters were then coded in order to develop the flood map of Tanzania. The findings of this study demonstrate the usefulness of open-source GEE in rapid flood inundation mapping.&nbsp

Incentives for wetlands conservation in the Mufindi wetlands of the Great Ruaha River Tanzania

Sustainable wetland management has to some extent become a high  priority for world’s environmentalists. Achieving sustainable wetland  management may require an increase in the voluntary adoption of best  management practices by both local communities and the government. This may be preceded by more tailored suite of incentive measures which  are effective in encouraging local people to adopt proper management practices. This study presents results from a study done in the Little Ruaha catchment of the Great Ruaha River Basin. Household surveys were done to assess the relevant incentives for wetlands management and how local  communities perceived the incentive and incentive mechanisms for sustainable wetland management. It was revealed that not every member of the community was motivated to conserve wetland and thus the  perceived wetland conservation incentives also vary greatly. Among  preferred incentives were; joint management, privatization, alternativeincome generating activities and land use rights/legal land ownership. Government policies and regulations were not perceived as real incentives. This study recommends a ‘tool-box’ of incentives which will encourage a range of local people in different situations to conserve wetlands. However, the tool box of incentives and their programs should be implemented with extra cautions as it may result into perverse incentives and consequently lead into unequal benefit sharing becoming disincentives to conservation and further degradation of wetlands.Key Words: Incentives; Disincentives; Wetlands; Great Ruaha Rive

Woody vegetation stocking, composition and diversity in Miombo Woodlands in Tanzania: A case study of Mgori forest reserve in Singida District

Participatory forest management (PFM) model is aimed at improving both forest resources conservation and livelihoods of local communities. In Tanzania, PFM is widely spread in forest reserves bearing the names of joint forest management, co forest management and community based forest management. However, despite the wide spread, less so far has been done to assess its contribution to conservation of the forest resources and livelihoods of local communities. The study, however, majored on assessment of forest resources by describing woody stocking, and species composition and diversity at Mgori Forest Reserve, in Tanzania. Mgori forest reserve (MFR) is one of the reserves in Tanzania, which are under the model. MFR is within miombo woodlands of Tanzania allocated along the western side of the country. Inventory data were collected from four village forest reserves, which are part of MFR. Atotal of 136 plots of the size 20 x 50 m (0.1ha) were laid in different clusters. The study enumerated a total number of 79 tree/shrub species. DBH distribution followed an inverse ‘J’ shape. Stem density in the study ranged between 494 and 885 N ha-1, while basal area and woody volumedistribution followed a ‘J’ shape. The basal area varied from 9.65 to 18.50 m2 ha-1, while the woody volume was averaged to 65.99 m3 ha-1 with a range of 54.49 to 104.47 m3 ha-1. The most dominant tree species in the study were Brachistigia spiciformis and Jubernadia globifolia. Importantvalue index of tree species ranged between 4.29 and 10.00, while Shannon Weiner index was between 2.54 and 3.04. Index of dominance in this study was between 0.03 and 0.11, while species diversity index ranged from 38.46 to 89.36 and species richness and evenness ranged between 9.65 and 21.04 and 1.55 and 1.81 respectively. The study concludes that woody stocking parameters as well as tree/shrub species composition and diversity indices are normal and similar to any other reserved forests in miombo woodlands.Key words: miombo woodland, stem density, basal area, woody volume, species composition, diversity, participatory forest management, village forest reserve

Impacts of Land Cover Change Caused by Urbanization on the Flood Regime of Msimbazi Catchment in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

The hydrological processes of a catchment are the function of climate, land use and land cover. Changes in either climate or land use or land cover can result in alteration of the catchment’s hydrological processes. In the recent past, Msimbazi catchment in Dar es Salaam has undergone drastic land cover changes mainly due to urbanisation. These land cover changes caused changes in the behaviour of river flow resulting in frequent floods. Therefore, this study analyses the impacts of the changes in land cover due to urbanisation specifically with the changes in river flow, surface run-off and base-flows. Previously generated land cover maps of Msimbazi catchment and a combination of spatial and meteorological climate datasets were used to parameterise the hydrological model (SWAT). The model was calibrated and validated using the Sequential Uncertainty Fitting algorithm (SUFI-2) on a monthly resolution. The results show that there is an increase in surface run-off, mean river flow and the reduction of base-flow with the increase in urbanisation within the catchment. These increase in river flows, surface run-off and reduction of base-flow indicates the likelihood of an increase in flooding events in the catchment

Influence of hydrological fluctuations on vegetation and Avifauna species composition, abundance and diversity in the Bahi Swamp wetlands Central Tanzania

This study was conducted in Bahi wetlands to assess the influence of  hydrological fluctuations on the vegetation and avifauna species  composition, abundance and diversity. A total of 80 rectangular vegetation plots measuring 2m x 5m were established along transect lines radiating from the core wetland, along eight cardinal directions each transect having a length of 1200m and accommodating 10 sampling points. Avifauna  species were inventoried in 3 points along each transect making a total of 24 sampling points for birds. One-way ANOVA was performed to  test for significant differences in the avifauna species diversity along the  hydrological gradient. A total of 40 avifauna species and 56 plant species belonging to 18 and 7 families respectively were recorded. There were  significant differences (p<0.05) in avifauna and plant species composition, abundance and diversity between distances from the centre of the wetland. Avifauna species abundance and diversity decreased with increasing   distance from centre of the wetland. Likewise, the abundance of plant species decreased with increasing distance from the centre of the wetland. The flora and avifauna species composition, abundance and diversity in theBahi wetlands are influenced by hydrological fluctuations, whereby the  composition, abundance and diversity are higher closer to the wetland than away from the edge of the wetland. The vegetation of wetland is  dominated by Leersia hexandra and other members of the Graminae  family. Bahi wetland is a refuge for migratory avifauna species. It was observed that both distant and African migrants visit the wetland for wintering. The most abundant species were Greater Flamingoes and Red Knobbed Coot. Awareness and education on the biodiversity values of the wetland is needed to influence conservation and sustainable utilization of  the wetland resources

Influence of Firms’ Staff and Skills on the Organizational Performance: A Case of the Salt Mining Industry in Tanzania

This study examined the influence of firms’ staff and firms’ skills on the organizational performance of salt mining industry in Coast Region of Tanzania where four salt companies were involved in the study. The study was quantitative, employing a survey design with a sample size of 100 employees obtained conveniently from a pool of 1010 employees from the four selected salt mining companies. The study employed primary data obtained through questionnaire distributed to the sampled respondents. Data was analysed descriptively and with inferential statistics with the help of SPSS to generate frequency tables and multiple regression analysis output. The findings of the study revealed that firms’ staff and firms’ skills influenced the organizational performance of salt mining industry. The study recommends to policy makers and managers of companies in the salt mining industry to reinforce policies, rules and regulations that will ensure low personnel turnover rate. They should appointment employees from diverse backgrounds, recruitment of skilled employees and provide opportunities for advancement. The study also recommends that policy makers should make sure that at organizational level, salt mining companies have career development plans that will enhance skills to employees