DAR ES SALAAM, November 14, 2013 – The World Bank welcomes today’s release of the initial poverty statistics from the 2011/12 Household Budget Survey by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The new poverty rate for Tanzania is estimated at 28.2 per cent in 2011/12, which captures the number of Tanzanians who are not able to consume a minimum basic needs basket of goods and services.
“We congratulate the National Bureau of Statistics on the new figures which have resulted from the adoption of a new approach to the analysis of data in line with international best practices,” says Philippe Dongier, the World Bank Country Director for Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi.
“However, because this new rate is not yet comparable over time, we look forward to the completion of the task of reanalyzing the 2007 data using the same improved methods in order to have a proper sense of the trend in poverty rates between 2007 and 2012.”
For this survey, the NBS set the basic needs poverty line at Sh36,482 per adult equivalent per month and this is based on the cost of a food basket that delivers 2,200 calories per adult and making an allowance for basic non-food necessities like clothing, health and education.
Through the improved analysis of the 2011/12 Household Budget Survey as well as other exercises such as the population census, the Government of Tanzania has been improving its stock of invaluable data in order to deepen its understanding of the characteristics and causes of poverty in Tanzania. The World Bank has supported this effort both through technical assistance and joint donor funding for the NBS surveys and capacity strengthening.
