The effects of structural adjustment programmes on the rate of urbanisation in Tanzania

This thesis examines an implicit aim of World Bank Structural Adjustment Programmes, that it is possible to slow down, and even reverse, rural to urban migration in a country by altering its internal terms of trade to favour rural over urban areas. After a brief introduction to the main arguments in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 examines the theoretical arguments that led the Bank to believe that by altering a country's internal terms of trade it could improve its overall macro-economic performance as veil as slow down its rate of urbanisation. In particular, it takes an in depth look at the work of Little, Scitovsky, and Scott (1970), and Lipton (1977), as veil as the Harris-Todaro model of migration. Chapter 3 moves on to examine some of the theoretical reasons why the arguments used by the Bank and academics in developing Structural Adjustment Programmes may not hold true. In addition, it concludes with an attempt to build a new model of migration that is applicable to sub-Saharan Africa. Chapters 4 and 5 are part of an in-depth study of the arguments outlined in the first two chapters applied to Tanzania. In particular, by looking at the history of the country since independence, they examine whether the country's economic policy vas biased in favour of urban areas, and whether this had any impact on its overall economic performance and the rate of migration. These chapters also examine various academic attempts to explain migration in Tanzania in light of the Harris-Todaro model. Chapter 6 is a detailed study of whether the new model of migration outlined at the end of Chapter 3, helps explain migration in the Mwanza region of Tanzania in the 1980s. Chapter 7 ends the study by outlining the main causes of migration, and examining whether the conclusions reached in the case of the Mwanza region, and Tanzania in general, can be applied to other countries in sub-Saharan Africa