Institutional Innovations and Competitiveness of Smallholders in Tanzania

This research examines the potentials for various forms of institutional innovations in building competitiveness of smallholder agriculture in Tanzania. It is inspired by a review of stylized facts on the performance of the agricultural sector since 1961 in Tanzania, from which it is hypothesized that persistent structural and institutional constraints inhibit increases in productivity, quality, and output of smallholders. Agriculture continues to employ a significant proportion of the labour force, and the smallholders dominate production of both food and export crops. While some policies and interventions of post independence contributed to the poor performance in export crop production, structural adjustments and trade liberalization did not reverse performance as envisaged. Recognizing the weakness in the workings of market institutions based on the neoclassical abstraction of free markets, this research draws from institutionalist perspectives which invoke the embeddedness of markets in social structures in the analysis of competitiveness of smallholders’ export crop production. The core argument is that proactive and collective actions among market institutions and non-market institutions are crucial for addressing market failures and other policy and institutional rigidities that impede on competitiveness of smallholders. This research examines this question using an interdisciplinary approach through an in-depth inquiry of three case studies involving smallholder production of cash crops

'A boy would be friends with boys... and a girl... with girls' : gender norms in early adolescent friendships in Egypt and Belgium

Purpose: A gender analysis was conducted to illuminate the key elements of friendships highlighted by early adolescent girls and boys in two sites for the purpose of better understanding the impact of gender norms on adolescent friendships in different contexts. Methods: Narrative interviews with early adolescents were conducted in two sites: Assiut, Egypt (n = 37) and Ghent, Belgium (n = 30). The interviews were recorded, transcribed, translated into English, and coded using Atlas.ti for analysis. Results: In both Assiut and Ghent, early adolescents reported some similarities in defining key characteristics of their same-sex friends as well as in the activities they share. However, differences were noticed among boys and girls within each site. In addition, the scope of shared activity was broader in Ghent than in Assiut. In both sites, few opposite-sex friendships were reported. Gender norms influenced choice of friends as well as the type and place of shared activities. Conclusions: Building on knowledge that adolescent friendships guide and reinforce attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that impact immediate and long-term health, our findings indicate that gender norms inform early adolescent friendships, which may impact healthy development

Measuring gender norms about relationships in early adolescence : results from the global early adolescent study

Introduction: Gender norms are increasingly recognized as drivers of health and wellbeing. While early adolescence constitutes a critical window of development, there is limited understanding about how adolescents perceive gender relations across different cultural settings. This study used a mixed-method approach, grounded in the voices of young people around the world, to construct and test a cross-cultural scale assessing the perceptions of gender norms regulating romantic relationships between boys and girls in early adolescence. Methods: The study draws on the Global Early Adolescent study (GEAS), a study focusing on gender norms and health related outcomes over the course of adolescence in urban poor settings worldwide. In-depth interviews were first conducted among approximately 200 adolescents between 10-14 years in seven sites across 4 continents to identify common scripts guiding romantic relations in early adolescence. These scripts were then transformed into a multidimensional scale. The scale was tested among 120 adolescents in each of 14 GEAS sites, followed by a second pilot among 75 adolescents in six sites. We evaluated the psychometric criteria of each subscale using principal component analysis, and parallel analysis, followed by exploratory factor analysis to guide the selection of a more parsimonious set of items. Results: Results suggested a two-factor structure, consisting of an "adolescent romantic expectations" subscale and a "Sexual Double Standard" subscale. Both subscales yielded high internal validity in each site, with polychoric Cronbach alpha values above 0.70 with the exception of Kinshasa for the adolescent romantic expectations scale (0.64) and Hanoi for the sexual double standard scale (0.61). Conclusion: This study reveals common perceptions of gendered norms about romantic engagement in early adolescence, normative for both sexes, but socially valued for boys while devaluated for girls. The findings illustrate that social hierarchies of power in romantic relationships form early in adolescence, regardless of cultural setting

Exploration of gender norms and socialization among early adolescents : the use of qualitative methods for the global early adolescent study

Purpose: The Global Early Adolescent Study (GEAS) was launched in 2014 with the primary goal of understanding the factors in early adolescence that predispose young people to subsequent sexual risks, and conversely, those that promote healthy sexuality across different cultural contexts. The present article describes the methodology that was used for the first phase of GEAS, which consisted of conducting qualitative research to understand the gendered transitions into adolescence and the role that gender norms play within the key relationships of adolescents. Researchers from each of the sites that had completed data collection were also elicited for their feedback on the key strengths, challenges, and lessons learned from conducting research among 11- to 14-year-old adolescents. The purpose of this article is to present the description of each of the methods that were used in GEAS, as well as the researchers' perspectives of using the methods among early adolescents in their sites. Methods: The GEAS is being implemented through a collaboration of university and nongovernmental institutions from 15 cities: Assiut (Egypt) Baltimore (U.S.), Blantyre (Malawi), Cape Town (South Africa), Cochabomba (Bolivia), Cuenca (Ecuador), Edinburgh (Scotland), Ghent (Belgium), Hanoi (Vietnam), Ile-Ife (Nigeria), Kinshasa (DRC), Nairobi (Kenya), New Delhi (India), Ouaga-dougou (Burkina Faso), and Shanghai (China). Approximately 30 in-depth interviews among adolescents and 30 in-depth interviews with their parent/guardian were conducted at each site, with adults and adolescents interviewed separately. To build trust and increase engagement among the adolescent participants, we used two different visual research methods: (1) timeline exercise which was small group based and (2) the Venn diagram exercise which was conducted individually and used at the start of the in-depth interview. Results: The visual aspects of both the timeline and the Venn diagrams not only helped to produce data for the purposes of the study, but also were a successful way of engaging the adolescent participants across sites. While the narrative interviews produced extremely rich data, researchers did notice that there were a few challenges among the younger adolescents. Challenges were related to the length of the interview, comprehension of questions, as some of the questions were either too abstract or asked adolescents about an experience they had not yet had and therefore could not address or articulate. Conclusions: Conducting the first phase of GEAS revealed important insights for research with participants who are in this developmental phase of early adolescence. Methods that involve greater engagement and those that are visual were shown to work well irrespective of the cultural setting

The performance of the manufacturing sector in Tanzania: Challenges and the way forward

Tanzania's industrial sector has evolved through various stages since independence in 1961, from nascent and undiversified to state-led import substitution industrialization, and subsequently to de-industrialization under the structural adjustment programmes and policy reforms. The current development agenda, however, has brought industrial development back to be one of the policy priorities. This paper aims at examining the performance of the manufacturing sector, with particular interest in identifying the emerging manufacturing subsectors, drivers of their success, and challenges for sustained competitiveness. The paper shows that manufacturing growth over the last ten years has helped to sustain GDP growth. The growth in manufacturing notwithstanding, it remains largely undiversified, and vulnerable to variations in agricultural production and commodity prices. The most dynamic subsectors in terms of output growth, export growth, production innovation and product diversity are food products, plastic and rubber, chemicals, basic metal work, and non-metallic mineral products. Nevertheless, the domestic value addition is limited by the dependence of imported intermediate goods, signifying limited inter-industry linkages that are important for promoting domestic manufacturing base and employment. Various technological, financial, policy, and administrative constraints remain unresolved and therefore, limiting faster industrial growth and transformation

Institutional Innovations and Competitiveness of Smallholders in Tanzania

This research examines the potentials for various forms of institutional innovations in building competitiveness of smallholder agriculture in Tanzania. It is inspired by a review of stylized facts on the performance of the agricultural sector since 1961 in Tanzania, from which it is hypothesized that persistent structural and institutional constraints inhibit increases in productivity, quality, and output of smallholders. Agriculture continues to employ a significant proportion of the labour force, and the smallholders dominate production of both food and export crops. While some policies and interventions of post independence contributed to the poor performance in export crop production, structural adjustments and trade liberalization did not reverse performance as envisaged. Recognizing the weakness in the workings of market institutions based on the neoclassical abstraction of free markets, this research draws from institutionalist perspectives which invoke the embeddedness of markets in social structures in the analysis of competitiveness of smallholders’ export crop production. The core argument is that proactive and collective actions among market institutions and non-market institutions are crucial for addressing market failures and other policy and institutional rigidities that impede on competitiveness of smallholders. This research examines this question using an interdisciplinary approach through an in-depth inquiry of three case studies involving smallholder production of cash crops