Women’s participation in TASAF initiated activities and their economic empowerment: A case of Morogoro District, Tanzania

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.
Keywords: Participation, TASAF activities, women economic empowerment