Survey on Street Involved Children & Youth in Tanzania

Summary

The Consortium for Street Children (CSC) was requested by the Ministry of Community Development, Gender and Children of the Republic of Tanzania to offer advice on the creation of a National Strategy for Street Children. A Street Children Planning Conference was held in Dar es Salaam in January 2009 and was attended by 83 representatives from government ministries, municipalities, international agencies, international and local NGOs, bilateral organisations, UN agencies and the street children themselves.

This Conference created a 15-point Action Plan and a Task Force to implement the recommendations and advise the government in the creation of its National Strategy for Street Children. The agreed overall aim of those at the conference was to “reduce the number of street children by 60% by 2019”. A survey of almost 2300 children on the streets in 7 major urban centres around Tanzania (in addition to a pilot survey of 411 children conducted in the 8th city, Mwanza, in 2008) was conducted in July and August 2009 and this report summarises the process and results of this survey and refers the findings back to the 15-Point Action Plan of the original Conference.