Building a transformative feminist movement for women empowerment in Tanzania: the role of the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP-Mtandao)

ABSTRACT Tanzania has, over the past two decades, made remarkable progress in terms of women’s representation in the parliament. In the women in parliament rankings, Tanzania comes 23rd in the world and the 8th in Africa with 36.6% Members of Parliament. This achievement is largely a result of struggles by the women’s movement in which a transformative feminist organization namely the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP-Mtandao) is clearly singled out to have played a leading role. This paper provides a critical assessment of the contribution of TGNP-Mtandao in promoting women’s representation and participation in decision-making processes in Tanzania. Specifically, it focuses to understand how TGNP’s leadership style contributed change in the rules of the game towards the achievement of gender equality and women’s political empowerment. In order to accomplish this endeavour, this work employed qualitative research so as to gain an in-depth understanding of gender issues in Tanzania’s context. Data were collected mainly through interviews with key stakeholders from parliamentarians and non-governmental organizations. Moreover, election reports, evaluation reports, gender reports, and legislations were reviewed to provide secondary data.