Gender Assessment for USAID/Tanzania

Tanzania has made significant efforts to address gender inequalities since independence, particularly in the domains of education and legal rights and representation. However, women continue to experience disadvantages relative to men throughout their lives in several key areas that significantly impact Tanzania’s ability to achieve its development goals. To assist the development of a new country strategic plan, USAID/Tanzania requested a gender assessment to identify 1) the key gender-based constraints and 2) ways to address them in the design of its new and/or continuing programs in the five Strategic Assessment Areas of health, HIV/AIDS, economic growth with an emphasis on agriculture, natural resource management, and democracy and governance. The USAID/Tanzania mission was particularly keen, as evidenced by the discussion with each team, to find ways to manage the requirement for gender integration. As a result, the predominance of the recommendations address management issues to enhance the ability of activity managers to get the technical information they might need. Findings of the gender assessment suggest that there are several areas where alleviating gender inequalities in access to key economic or political resources – such as landholding, inheritance, and health services – can improve Tanzania’s overall development outcomes.