Telling the Stories of Asset Accumulation

This chapter sums up the lessons from the book as a whole. We argue that a common, but not universal trend is that rural assets have increased. Because these assets are not recorded in poverty-line data this wealth is not easily visible, directly, in some poverty statistics. However we also insist that this does not mean that rural Tanzanian families are ‘really’ wealthy even though they look poor. Rather assets capture one facet of the experience of poverty and prosperity. Nonetheless the prevalence and frequency of asset change surprised us. It is notable that asset accumulation appears to have been driven by agricultural activities, although the timing and nature of these changes has varied in each case. We consider the implications of these findings for rural development policy and development data and the implications of our methods for long term research projects.