This proceeding is one of the activities of the research project titled: ‘RuralUrban Transformation (RUT): Governance, Mobility and Economic Dynamics of merging Urban Centers for Poverty Reduction.’ RUT was designed to primarily contribute to Tanzania as well as DANIDA’s 1st priority to reduce poverty. The policy workshop is one of a series of workshops that have been organized by RUT research project for different objectives and participants. The policy workshop was designed for individuals in high-level decision-making position in the Government Ministries, Local Government Authorities (LGAs), Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), and private sector.
RUT is one of the collaborative research projects between Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) and the University of Copenhagen (in Denmark). Funded by DANIDA and administratively supported by Danish Fellowship Centre (DFC) through the South-Driven Development Research Program in Tanzania for the period from January 2015 to December 2017. However, the research project was granted no cost extension to allow completion of PhD sponsored students and in 2019 further no cost extension was granted to allow for implementation of activities that were re-scheduled due to COVID-19 pandemic. Capacity building in the form of postgraduate training at SUA and Copenhagen University was one of the projects’ components.
The objective of the policy workshop is to present and discuss contributions from RUT research project to government efforts on governance and planning challenges in relation to rural-urban transformation (both structural and spatial changes) taking place in Tanzania. The workshop through presentations and discussions, provide an overview of existing opportunities and challenges in governance frameworks and practices, and deliberate on ways by which policies on rural-urban transformation can be influenced to enhance poverty reduction.