This dissertation explores women’s participation in decentralized local governance in
Tanzania. The issue of women’s participation in governance in Tanzania has become
increasingly prominent in the area of governance. This is due to fact that although women
constitute slightly more than half of the country’s population, they are disproportionately
represented in the governance domain. A body of knowledge exists on participation and
gender in Tanzania. However, beyond plain statistics, there is limited information on
women’s experiences in participation within decentralized local governance in the country.
Two main theoretical streams exist in literature concerning participation and gender. One
stream of literature argues that women’s descriptive participation leads to substantive
women’s participation. The other stream argues that it is important to focus on what specific
actors do to represent women’s concerns and not women’s descriptive participation. Against
this background this thesis aims to explore how, why and the effects of pastoral and nonpastoral
women’s participation in decentralized local governance in Tanzania.
The data analysed in the dissertation were collected in Kondoa Local Authority, Tanzania.
Within Kondoa, the two dominant women groups-pastoral women and non-pastoral women
were selected as case studies. In this study I employed qualitative research methods. To
analytically link theoretical perspectives and the collected data, I employed the critical mass
and critical actors theoretical perspectives, women descriptive representation, women
substantive representation, women in development as well as gender and development
approaches.
Based on the observations, interviews and focus group discussions, I have found that despite
pastoral and non-pastoral women in governance, the quality of women participation is low.
Both case studies reveal that women’s participation is mainly limited to their physical
presence or the nominal level. Most of the women revealed that they had limited freedom to
decide whether or not to participate in a whole range of relevant activities: voting, vying for
leadership positions, political campaigning, public protest and debates. Likewise, women had
little influence on decision-making in meetings or in decision-making organs.