Why Did the Ujamaa Village Policy Fail? – Towards a Global Analysis

In: The journal of modern African studies: a quarterly survey of politics, economics & related topics in contemporary Africa, Band 18, Heft 3, S. 387-410

Abstract

Genuineefforts have been made in recent years to build a more egalitarian and just society in Tanzania. A 'leadership code' forbids senior government and party officials to have a second income from business interests or rents; a steeply progressive tax system reduces income differentials from a ratio of 1/100 before independence to 1/10 in the 1970s; a period of national service is obligatory for secondaryschool and university graduates; fairly successful attempts have been made to radically reform the whole educational system; and the major financial, industrial, and commercial enterprises have been nationalised. But 13 years after its inception in 1967, it is now generally acknowledged that the policy of creatingujamaavillages has failed in terms of what they had been designed to achieve: namely, the building of a socialist society in the rural areas of Tanzania where more than 90 per cent of the population lives.