Can ‘Tanzania Ladies First’ be a Trigger for Female Athletes to Continue in Sport?

Abstract

In Tanzania, the gender gap in sports participation remains largely due to socio-cultural and economic influences, partly due to the transition to a market economy and the Ujamaa policy. One of the reasons for lower participation of women compared with men is that many girls give up continuing with sport after primary school. In this situation, the Tanzania Ladies First (LF), a national sports competition exclusively for women, has been held since 2017. In this paper, a questionnaire survey and random interviews were conducted with selected and non-selected athletes for Tanzanian LF, and their parents to examine the role of the LF in the continuation of elite female athletes’ sport by using a mixed method of quantitative and qualitative analysis. This paper found that participation in LF boosts subsequent continuation in sport. On the other hand, in the context of the transition to a market economy, this paper shows that LF may have fixed social and economic structures that allow only a few elite women athletes to continue in sport, rather than expanding women's participation in sport, which runs counter to the spirit of LF. This paper suggests that in the context of a market economy, it will be necessary to promote national awareness of LF to a wider audience and media to make LF more attractive to women and private companies. This paper also recommends the introduction of life skills training through sport for female students to encourage them to continue with sport after leaving school.

Keywords:

• women
• sport
• athletics
• Tanzania
• sub-Saharan Africa

Acknowledgements

This paper has been prepared as part of a JICA Ogata Research Institute project entitled ‘Study on Peace and Development through Sport’. The author is grateful to the staff of the JICA Ogata Research Institute and JICA Tanzania. The views and interpretations expressed in this paper and any errors are my own and not necessarily those of JICA.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Tanzania is subdivided into 31 regions (as of 2016).

2 The declaration is available at https://www.icsspe.org/sites/default/files/Brighton%20Declaration.pdf.

3 Regarding IWGWS, please see http://www.iwg-gti.org

4 https://www.findeasy.in/population-of-tanzania/ Access in Feb. 5, 2023

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mitsuaki Furukawa

Mitsuaki Furukawa is a professor of International Relations at the University of Shizuoka, Japan. His research explores peacebuilding, post-war development, sports for development and peace, and SDGs.