Abstract:
Women in Tanzania play important roles in activities that contribute to national
economy. However, it is not well known whether their participation in
development activities such as those initiated by TASAF projects empower them
economically and to what extent. This study was conducted in Morogoro
District to explore women’s economic empowerment among women involved in
TASAF initiated activities. The study adopted a cross-sectional research design
whereby data were collected once, and it involved 160 respondents, five key
informant’s interviews and four FGD’s with 8-10 participants. Women’s
economic empowerment index scales were developed to gauge the level of
women’s economic empowerment in different spheres; cumulative
empowerment index was computed to gauge the overall women economic
empowerment. The binary logistic regression analysis was run to determine
factors for economic empowerment among women participating in TASAF
project activities. It was found that majority of the respondents (71.6%) were
categorized into empowered level. Participation in TASAF activities,
participation in women organizations and woman’s age were important
predictors for their economic empowerment (P<0.05). The study concludes that
TASAF initiated activities have a great potential to empower women. The study
recommends to the TASAF project officials and Local Government Authorities
to support and expand the coverage of the TASAF initiated activities.
