Shanty Town

A shanty town in Dar-es-Salaam, the commercial center of Tanzania.

The country has been enjoying unprecedented economic growth and their GDP growth in the last couple of years of 7-8% has been amongst the highest in Africa. What you see on the ground though is very different - Tanzania still is one of the poorest countries in the world where 1 in 3 people live below the poverty line and the average life expectancy is 51 years.

Its easy to be fooled when in the commercial center of the city with all the glitzy cellphone and banking billboards, the trendy cafes and restaurants and the odd Range Rover on the streets but that economic growth, I believe is confined to the tiny majority of wealthy people, politicians (many of them corrupt) and the foreigners who benefit most from the growth. Most Tanzanians don't benefit from the so-called myth of "trickle-down economics" have to worry about their next meal as is evident from this shanty town with no proper electricity or sanitation many of them being littered all over Dar-es-Salaam.