Omen’s economic empowerment: A case of selected Tanzania Social Action Fund (TASAF) III project in Morogoro District, Tanzania

Abstract

Women’s economic empowerment is crucial for growth of the economy within the country and globally. However, it is not well known whether women’s involvements in TASAF activities are impacting positively on their economic empowerment. The overall objective of this study was to assess women’s economic empowerment among women involved in TASAF project in Morogoro District. The specific objectives were to identify the activities initiated by TASAF; to examine women participation in selected TASAF project activities; to determine the level of empowerment among women participating in TASAF project activities; to determine economic empowerment as a result of participation in TASAF project activities. The study adopted a cross-sectional research design, whereby a total of 160 respondents were involved. The study used primary and secondary data; primary data the tools used were questionnaire survey, FGD guide and interview schedule for key informant and secondary data was collected from publication from TASAF project office and Village office. A descriptive statistics was used to identify the activities performed by women who were supported by TASAF project and social demographic characteristics. A Cumulative Empowerment Index (CEI) was used to determine the overall level of women’s economic empowerment. A binary logistic regression model was used to analyse the impact of women’s participation in TASAF project and their economic empowerment. The results showed that women were involved in livestock keeping, food vending, selling vegetables, fruits, fish, homemade soaps and local beer. The study further revealed that majority (71.6%) of the respondents was economically empowered. In addition women’s participation in TASAF activities, women organizations and age of woman were important predictors to women’s economic empowerment (P<0.05). Thus, it is concluded that, participation in TASAF initiated activities had a great potential to empower women economically. Therefore, it is recommended that stakeholders and NGOs should encourage women to participate in TASAF activities through provision of trainings and awareness rising; in addition financial institutions should provide soft loans to women in order to enable them to establish income generating activities to empower them economically.