“Good Life Never Comes Like Dreams”

Youth and the city in Tanzania

Nicola Banks

ESRC Future Research Leader (ES/K009729/1)

50 Years of Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: The experience of Tanzania, University of Bradford 29th to 30th May 2014

1. Overview

• Why young people?

• Why urban youth?

• Conceptualisations of ‘youth’

• An alternative framework for conceptualising youth

• Youth and the city in Tanzania: methods and overview

– Assets: employment and education

– Institutional support

– Hopes and aspirations

– Developmental outcomes

• Conclusions

2. Why youth?

• Young people constitute significant proportions of national populations (‘the youth bulge’)

– Uganda – 33% - Kenya – 32%

– Burundi – 32% - Rwanda – 31%

– Tanzania – 32%

• Suffer disproportionately from development challenges:

– Tanzanian youth constitute 60-65% of unemployed people and the youth unemployment rate is 4% higher than national average.

– Young women (15-24) account for 45% new HIV infections, young men account for a further 26%.

• Youth populations hold the responsibility for being the ‘next generation’, at the same time as being seen as a significant threat to the country and population.

2. Why urban youth?

• Pressures of youth demography accompanied by rapid urbanisation.

• Dynamic ‘global’ cities heighten youth aspirations but contemporary urbanisation across the continent has not lived up to these promises.

• Cities are difficult places to be young and poor:

– Urbanisation has been accompanied by poverty and informality

– Over 80% Dar’s population live in informal settlements

– Unemployment rates significantly higher in cities, especially capital cities (National unemployment 11%, urban unemployment 16.3%, Dar es Salaam unemployment 31.3%)

– Benefits of city life enjoyed by only a select few, widespread marginalisation and disenfranchisement for the majority of young people.

– Limited opportunities for social mobility for the urban poor.

3. Conceptualisations of ‘youth’

• ‘Youth’ defined in two key ways:

1) By age boundary – 15-24 years (UN), increasing up to 35 years across SSA.

- fails to recognise the heterogeneity of young people’s

experiences and needs

2) As a period of 5 ‘key transitions’: learning, work, health, family and citizenship (2007 WDR)

- fails to recognise tight inter-linkages between these

and the fact that youth experience many of them simultaneously.

- Health is not a transition!

- Need to look at the underlying factors providing constraints or opportunities within each transition, including assets, institutional support, aspirations.

3. Harnessing Youth Potential Framework

4. Methods

• Early findings from a 3-year research ESRC-funded project entitled, Youth, poverty and inequality in urban Tanzania.

– Focus group discussions with young men and women in Arusha and Dar es Salaam

– Interviews with parents and local leaders (Arusha)

• Complemented with findings from Uganda

– Nationally-representative survey of youth

– Focus group discussions

5. The urban advantage: education and employment?

• Better access to education, especially secondary and higher

– Gender differentials appear to be narrowing

• But problems of quality remain, leaving young people poorly prepared for hostile job market

• Amidst limited jobs, high competition, and limited skills and capital, young people have to rely on ‘street smartness’

• Left to work under exploitative terms for other people, barely covering their costs and unable to save.

“Even those who are working are in hardship. It’s a struggle for them. They can manage, but not move forward”.

6. Youth and institutional support

• Lack of financial and emotional support from parents:

– Expected to be financially independent from school drop out

– Conflicts between parents and with stepparents

– Limited love and affection

– Unstable family backgrounds (single parents, alcoholism

• Limited support from the broader community:

– Not allowed to participate in decision-making

– Viewed on spectrum from lazy to criminal

– No routes for escaping the pressures of daily life.

6. Youth and institutional support: Government policy

• Policy outlines some of the key challenges facing youth but is unspecific on the measures that need to be taken to improve things.

• Falls behind its neighbours on creation of a National Youth Council, so no political infrastructure that integrates young people into decision-making.

7. Hopes and aspirations

• ‘Good life never comes like dreams’ – benefits and realities of city life

Benefits of the city Realities of the city

“More schools” Early drop out; “Saint Kayumba” schools

“Jobs” (esp small business) No jobs, leads to temptations

“Better transport” Not allowed on local buses (cheaper fare); dangerous

Availability of goods and services

Too expensive

Global integration Makes us see what we’re missing

Tourism This isn’t the Arusha/Dar that we enjoy

9. Some tentative conclusions

• Heightened aspirations are not met in the city:

• “Young people are facing a hard time 100% of the time…there is a huge difference between the situation facing young people today and that facing our own generation when we were youth”

• Idea of transition misrepresents experiences of most youth

• Limited prospects for social mobility, fears of marriage among young men.

“Good Life never comes like dreams”

“Tomorrow is today”