Think Creative - Issue 5

Two members of Peace Ambassadors groups review the microcredit records after a group meeting. Inset: Edgar Mwangakala, a Peace Ambassador in the Temeke district of Dar es Salaam.

Brothers Axel (left) and Jordan have been spending their Saturdays at Casa Alianza – a nonprofit that offers counseling, workshops, trainings and other services to juvenile offenders.

Peace and Microfinance

How “self-help groups” foster resilience to violence in Tanzania

By Jillian Slutzker Rocker. Photos by Erick Gibson

Edgar walks the short path fromhis home in Te- meke district to the store around the corner to buy chicken feed. He swings the heavy bag onto his shoulder and lugs it back to the coup outside his house where some 500 hungry chickens wait to be fed. Though EdgarMwangakala, 27, grew up in the trade—his father also bred chickens—the work now has new promise. He recently bought a piece of land in nearby Chanika ward, where the climate is better for raising chickens. He plans to open a branch of his poultry business there. Edgar’s business is benefiting frommicrocredit he accessed through a small group of youth entrepreneurs in his neighborhood, which is a hotspot for youth violence and extremism. Called Peace Ambassadors, Edgar’s groupmeets not only to borrow credit and talk entrepreneur- ship, but also to discuss ways to build peace and help other young people avoid violence. “We call these hotspot areas where we face a lot of challenges with violence,” saysMujuni Baitani, who served as a leader for the Tanza- nia Bora Initiative, which supported the Peace Ambassadors. “In police crime reports, we find that Temeke and Kinondoni are the highest [for

crime] in Tanzania. So, it’s very easy to pick plac- es like this to ensure that we come together with this community, help them to see best practices and how they can transform.” Peace Ambassador groups like Edgar’s were one component of the Greater Resilience through Enhanced Analysis in Tanzania (GREAT) project, which worked across four cities in communities with high vulnerability to violent extremism to reducemarginalization and risk. Funded by the U.S. Department of State and implemented by Creative, the project partnered with local governments and the communities to assess local drivers to violent extremism, using robust analytical tools, so that the government and communities could effectively respond. Based on this research, the project co-designed activities with the communities to improve resilience, based on factors for resilience the communities identified. During the activities, communitymembers provided additional feed- back to the project to improve implementation. A final report revealed that the project’s informed, coordinated programming boosted the resilience of at-risk communities by 50 percent from the baseline. This was measured

by the number of mechanisms, structures and institutions engaged in resilience strengthening activities and other decision-making processes, such as local government authorities, communi- ty policing initiatives, clubs, forums, functioning reportingmechanisms, village community banks and interreligious platforms. Responding to risk The prevalence of violent extremism is rela- tively low in Tanzania compared to other East African countries. There has not been amajor attack there since the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy by al-Qaeda. There were however, sev- eral smaller-scale violent attacks in the Coastal region from2016 through early 2018 that spe- cifically targeted local government authorities and police. Recently, the proximity of al-Shabab in neigh- boring Kenya and nearby Somalia has caused increased concern with reports of Tanzanians attempting to join the group, participating in affiliated training camps and joining local cells. To the south, Mozambique is contending with the emerging threat of Ansar al-Sunna, another risk for the region.

More common in Tanzania have been attacks on places of worship, mosques and churches, as well as the targeting of moderate Christian and Muslimclerics. Still, little data existed on local risk factors and drivers of violent extremism in themost vulner- able communities, says JacquelineMotcho, who served as Chief of Party for the GREAT project. “It was important to do the assessment before we started out the program,” she says. “There was essentially no baseline available that we could use and say ok, this is where things stand; this is what the indicators say. So, we had to create our own baseline indicators and start from there.” In partnership with local governments and the communities, the teamconducted the assess- ment in five regions: Arusha, Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Tanga, and Zanzibar. Ultimately, the project ended up working in all but Zanzibar. Motcho says that across regions, many of the same risk factors and characteristics emerged. “Number one is that political violence is rampant across the regions. There are a lot of political injustices. There is a decrease in civic space,” she says. “The second driver was about

economic employment, opportunities that youth feel they are not availed of. The third one is about religious divide, particularly for the big religious sects: Christians andMuslims.” The report also revealed that those individuals most at risk were those near where an attack or other violent extremist activity had occurred or was ongoing, and “those who were less likely to transition to responsible adults” due to poverty, illiteracy or other factors. “When we talk about risk, it is all those things combined,” saysMotcho. In the hotspot communities of Dar es Salaam, the project responded to themost salient local risk factor—youth underemployment and un- employment—with the youth Peace Ambassa- dor groups that combined discussions on peace and ways to counter extremismwithmicrofi- nance to help youth launch small businesses. Peace Ambassadors dubbed them “self-help groups.” Beyond an income, the initiative supported vulnerable youth in paving their own paths for the future that align with their expectations and hopes.

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