The Potential of the National Ageing Policy in Enabling Social Protection of the Elderly in Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania

Regina Malima ()
Additional contact information
Regina Malima: The Open University of Tanzania (OUT), Postal: Sokoine University of Agriculture, College of Agriculture, Department of Agricultural Extension and Community Development, P.O.BOX 3002, Morogoro, Tanzania, https://www.out.ac.tz/

Tanzania Journal of Community Development (TAJOCODE), 2021, vol. 1, issue 1, 14-24

Abstract: Although substantial progress has been made in adopting National Ageing Policy (NAP) of 2003 in Tanzania, lack of enforceable laws to ensure successfully implementation of the policy on elderly social protection remain a major challenge. This paper examined the NAP of 2003 on the elderly social protection in Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania. The issues covered the policy environment of the NAP on provision of basic needs to the elderly, institutional arrangements in relation to the elderly’s social protection and factors affecting the implementation of NAP. A cross-sectional design was used and data were collected through FGDs and key informant interviews. Data were analysed by using content analysis. The study found that while Tanzania has taken some elderly’s social protection initiatives including the adoption of the NAP, the measures have not been adequately implemented in achieving effective and sustainable welfare of the elderly due to absence of legislation that backup the implementation of the NAP. The study concludes that; in the absence of elderly’s legal framework and effective institutional arrangements, successful interventions to support the elderly will not be achieved. Therefore, it is recommended that the Government through the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children need to review the NAP and come up with effective legal and regulatory framework measures that will guide and control the elderly social protection services delivery. Such measures include the enactment of the elderly law(s), establishment of effective institutional arrangements with coherent systems, enforcement and coordination engagements in order to guide social protection design and implementation processes that promote effective elderly’s social protection in Tanzania.

Keywords: Elderly; social protection; policy; legal and regulatory framework (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H75 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.suaire.sua.ac.tz/handle/123456789/3861 Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:tajoco:0002

Access Statistics for this article

Tanzania Journal of Community Development (TAJOCODE) is currently edited by Rasel M. Madaha

More articles in Tanzania Journal of Community Development (TAJOCODE) from Department of Agricultural Extension and Community Development, Sokoine University of Agriculture Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Rasel M. Madaha ().