Challenges to Traditional Livelihoods and Newly Emerging Employment Patterns of Pastoralists in Tanzania

Abstract

Executive Summary This report is a result of a one-month fieldwork undertaken in Simanjiro district in Arusha region through a community based consultative process. The study is an attempt to analyze and identify ways of strengthening the changing livelihood and employment situations among the pastoral communities in Tanzania. The study observes that the pastoral communities are in major crises today. They are marginalized in many aspects: socially, economically, and politically. This situation is a reflection of inadequate government pastoral development policies, discouragement of the pastoral mode of production, competition in use of the available natural resources, lack of bargaining power and inadequate formal education and training among the pastoral societies. A team of three researchers, at the request of the ILO-INDISCO program in cooperation with the Jobs for Africa Program, had an opportunity to meet a reasonable cross section of people involved directly or indirectly in “Traditional Occupations” in Simanjiro district. Three villages were selected for an in-depth study in the district. The choice of these villages was based on a number of considerations, but more importantly ILO’s initial involvement in the area through the support extended to pastoralists in establishing a pastoralist co operative society.