TEP PROJECT IN TANZANIA

The United Republic of Tanzania (hereafter referred to as Tanzania) is located in Eastern Africa. It is bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the North, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the West, and Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique to the South. The country's eastern border lies in the Indian Ocean, with a coastline of about 1,424 km. The country consists of three great lakes namely: Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika and Lake Nyasa (alias Lake Malawi). The country occupies an area of 945,087 km². The capital city is Dodoma (legislative) and Dar es Salaam, an emerging metropolis, serves as a commercial city. 

Tanzania formerly was known as Tanganyika until 1964 the two countries, Tanganyika and Zanzibar, united to form the United Republic of Tanzania. The country’s terrain consists of coastal plains, central plateau with series of undulating hills, highlands. The highest point is Mount Kilimanjaro with the height of 5895m above sea level. The climate is generally tropical with aridity in some few parts. The National Census of 2012 estimated the country to have a population of about 44,928,923 million. Given the rapid population growth, the number was projected to of 56, 313,438 by 2018. There are more than 130 tribes in Tanzania. Notwithstanding linguistic and cultural diversity, Kiswahili language is used as a lingua franca and English as an official language. 

The Government of the United Republic of Tanzania holds a firm conviction that gender equality and women empowerment are play an indubitable role in poverty reduction and sustainable development. This commitment is reflected in national strategies, plans and policies such as the Tanzania. Development Vision 2025, National Five-Year Development Plan2011/12–2015/16, National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (NSGR) and Women and Gender Development Policy of 2000. 

Also, the ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children, is mandated with promoting gender equality and women development nationally and represent the government regionally and internationally. Thus, progress towards gender equality and empowerment of Tanzania women has been taking place in a national context. 

However, in Tanzania, as a country with the strong patriarchy system, men have more advantages, prioritized and privileges compared to women in terms of access to opportunities for decision making, access to health care services, education, employment and access to income. 

Gender inequality practices are widespread across the country and across various sectors of economy. According to UNDP (2016), Tanzania had a gender inequality index value of 0.544, with the position of 129 out of 159 countries in the 2015.

Tanzania Education and Training Policy of 1995 set the structure of education as 2-7-4-2-3+years. This implies that 2 years are designated for pre-primary education, 7 years for primary education, 4 years for ordinary secondary education, 2 years for advanced secondary education, and 3 years or more for university education depending on the degree programme. The new education and training policy of 2014 sets a structure of 1–10–2–3+ years.

Education is an important aspect in determining the quality of labour force available in the country. Statistic shows that the percentage of persons with Secondary education or above was larger for men (25.0) than women (18.6). 

Nevertheless, the percentage of women (22.3) who had never attended secondary education accounted for 22.3 per cent apparently, women accounted for highest proportion of people who had never attended to school compared to men. By and large, literacy rate for men and women decrease with age starting from age 15, with men becoming more prominent than women. 

The persistence of gender inequality in the education sector has undoubtedly resulted in gender imbalance in the employment industry. According to Tanzania Bureau of Statistics, in the year 2015, the share of males’ employment in the formal sector of economy was 63.0 percent and 37.0 percent for females (Tanzania Bureau of Statistics, 2017). 

Accordingly, men have become dominant, with agriculture accounting for the gender gap of about 5.9 percentages. Forestry and fishing account for 5.1 percentages. Table 1 provides a synopsis of gender imbalance in the employment industry. 

Linguistic and ethnic diversity provide insight into the cultural diversity in the country. As total way of life in a given speech community or country, culture encompasses economic production, political organization and social affairs like religion and education. 

It also includes language, knowledge, beliefs, morals, norms, traditions, laws, and customs and any other capabilities and habits and which are so complex. Despite linguistic diversity, people use Kiswahili as a lingua franca since it unifies people belonging to different speech communities and it serves as the national language. 

The landscape and animals are valued as national treasures, symbolized on coins and as brand names for manufactured products. Culture is nevertheless static. Rather, it is dynamic changing in response to changing social contexts. 

Because culture is dynamic, people change in accordance with the transformations embedded in a given society. These changes are gradual, involving a continuous process of change. Despite the dynamism, culture continues to give a community a sense of dignity, continuity, security and bind society together. 

Apparently, culture has influence on gender inequalities as a result of inherent gender roles and power relations that emanate from the male-dominated social and cultural structures in Tanzania.