Health

Statistics suggest that one of Nyerere's major achievements was an increase in the people's general standard of living, despite the privations created by the villagization programme. Analysts and historians often use a category known as the Quality of Life Index (QLI) to measure a nation's economic performance. The emphasis in QLI is not on purely financial or economic considerations but on social ones. Have conditions improved for the people? The answer to that question is assessed by three main measures:

•  infant mortality - the number of children who die within eighteen months of birth per thousand of live births

•  life expectancy - the age to which an individual was likely to live from birth

•  adult literacy - the percentage of the adult population with basic reading and writing skills.

Tanzania's QLI record in comparison with its neighbours, Uganda and Kenya, with western Europe and with the USA and Canada combined is shown in Sources O, P and Q.

SOURCE O

Infant mortality rates in different countries and regions.

Study Sources O, P and Q. How favourably does Tanzania’s QLI compare with its neighbours and with western Europe and North America?

Life expectancy in different countries and regions.

SOURCE

Literacy rates in different countries and regions.

While these figures were not impressive initially by the standards of the USA or western Europe, they show a notable advance for Tanzania over the period. Nyerere's record as measured by QLI is striking. Despite the food shortages and continuing poverty, many more children were surviving, people were living longer and were being better educated. This was not an accident; it was a result at least in part of the health provision programmes introduced under Nyerere. Not all public money was frittered away in failed schemes and bureaucratic corruption. There was investment in positive planning:

•  In 1961, in a population of 10.7 million, there were only 12 fully trained professional doctors, a ratio of one doctor to 870,000 people. By 1985, in a population that had more than doubled to over 27 million, there were 1,065 trained doctors, a ratio of one doctor to 26,000 people.

•  In addition, over a ten-year period between 1976 and 1985, over 6,000 nurses and medical assistants entered the public health services.

•  By 1985, half of all Tanzanian families had access to a health centre, a considerable achievement by African standards.

•  By 1985, under a state immunization programme, half a million children had been vaccinated and inoculated against a variety of diseases.

•  Notwithstanding the criticism of collectivization as social policy, there were aspects of villagization that were distinctly progressive. One example is that by the time of Nyerere's retirement every village had been provided with a primary school.

Study Source R. What information do the figures provide regarding the provision of health facilities between 1961 and 1985?

Health care provision.

How did educational standards improve under Nyerere?

Study Source S. What trend is observable regarding school provision between 1961 and 1984?