The art of balancing food security: securing availability and affordability of food in Tanzania

Monitoring of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) indicates that a large number of countries are not on track to reach the hunger targets set out in Goal 1 (MDG1, Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger by 2015). The purpose of this paper is to assess the appropriateness of three underlying factors identified by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), misguided policies, failing markets and weak institutions, in explaining food insecurity in Tanzania. Our analysis basically supports UNDP’s emphasis on the importance of policy, institutions and market access when seeking to improve food security and reach MDG1, but underlining the importance of empowering people to hold the Government accountable for failing to deliver on their policies and plans. The main finding is that the Tanzanian Government is struggling with the difficulty of addressing the twin goals of balancing national food availability with affordable food prices for urban and rural consumers.