1.  SMS Campaign on COVID Vaccination in Tanzania
This project is a randomized placebo-controlled trial to evaluate an SMS campaign targeting Tanzanian mobile phone subscribers with different SMS content aimed at increasing vaccine take-up. This is a PEP-funded project in collaboration with NIMR.

2.  Afya Yako: Countering Public Health Misinformation through Local Media
This project has two sides, the demand side and the supply side. On the demand side, the core intervention is a nationwide local radio campaign (“Sauti Ya Tiba”) to combat public health misinformation. The campaign involves 3 components: Capacity building at radio stations; Local radio campaigns; and Interactive messaging through WhatsApp and text messaging groups. It involves working with about 50 community radio stations across Tanzania. Collaborators in this project are Columbia University (Dylan Groves and John Marshall) and NIMR.
On the supply side, the focus is on local accountability journalism to enhance the bureaucratic implementation of health service delivery. The intervention for this project involves training journalists on relevant topics and locally appropriate journalistic techniques, supporting radio stations/journalists to visit health facility catchment areas to identify problems encountered by patients, supporting a meeting between journalists, healthcare providers, and the district health management team to develop a plan to improve health services. It involves working with about 50 community radio stations across Tanzania. Collaborators in this project are Columbia University (Dylan Groves and John Marshall).

3.  Raising Money for the State: Strengthening Tax Compliance in Tanzania.
The main objective of the project is to identify new ways of increasing tax compliance and tax revenues.
This research project is a collaborative project between the Tanzania Revenue Authority (Director Ephraim Mdee, Manager George Hellar, and Manager Fimbo Massaga at the Research & Planning Department), the University of Zurich (Prof. Dina Pomeranz), the Norwegian School of Economics (Prof. Vincent Somville), Prof. Innocent Pantaleo, and the Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF).
A sub-component of this project is the Domestic Worker’s Project. Domestic workers face several challenges in their workplace.

The research team aims to identify urgent key challenges for domestic workers and effective and realistic solutions that will work and make a difference. Following discussions between the research team and the union for domestic workers team (TUCTA and CHODAWU), it was decided to explore different interventions across the areas of health insurance, gender-based violence and harassment, working hours, investment schemes like UTT (Assets Management and Investor Services Plc), and training on negotiation skills. Proposed interventions will be evaluated by Randomized Control Trials (RCTs).

4.  Digital Media and Civic Knowledge: Evidence from an Electronic Newspaper Distribution Experiment
This project aims to assess the impact of giving citizens access to the digital version of Tanzania newspaper. It further explores how technologies can be harnessed to increase access to reliable information in developing countries. The project is funded by JPAL, and we are partnering with Smart Foundry under its subsidiary department, Rifaly.

5.  Leveraging local religious leaders to counter human trafficking in rural Tanzania
This project’s objective is to first, prevent the trafficking of vulnerable youth from rural villages to urban areas of Tanzania for forced child labor, mostly in the form of domestic servitude and forced labor in mines and agriculture, as well as child sex trafficking.
In particular, to prevent “traffickers recruit, harbor, transport, and obtain this youth for labor by using fraud” and “traffickers use fraud to cause a child to engage in a commercial sex act” (U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, as amended).
The second goal is to reduce the stigma against survivors of this type of human trafficking. The project is funded by IPA, and we are partnering with the Tanzania Interfaith Partnership.

6  .Afya Pamoja: Using citizen e-health feedback to improve health services in Tanzania
This project is a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact of an e-health feedback platform on the quality of healthcare services, the satisfaction of community members and the satisfaction of healthcare workers; and health outcomes. The study involves 950 health facilities from 85 districts and their catchment areas. This is a JPAL-funded project in collaboration with Columbia University (Dylan Groves and John Marshall), NIMR, and Robert Smith.

7.  Can radio reduce Intimate Partner Violence: a national scale field Experiment in Tanzania
This project aims to test/evaluate whether radio programs can reduce Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). The research builds on earlier work which investigated whether radio stations can help change health behaviors. The project is funded by Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA).

8.   Impact Evaluation Lab
The Impact Evaluation Laboratory’s core purpose is to champion impact evaluation work in Tanzania. The lab has been particularly successful in increasing the number of research projects that estimate the impacts of interventions by using standard Impact Evaluation research designs and implementation of small grants initiative programs for capacity development.   Read More

9.   Small Grants Initiative
The Small Grants Initiative aims to build the capacity of junior and mid-career researchers interested in sharpening research skills using rigorous methods of Impact Evaluation. Under the auspices of the Impact Evaluation Laboratory, the IE Lab funds and supports researchers. The grantees are given funding of up to 5000 USD to carry out their projects. Additionally, they get mentorship from researchers at the lab, have to produce a paper or report, do a presentation at our “Utafiti Wetu” workshop, and also present at other avenues.

10.   Utafiti Wetu Sessions
Utafiti Wetu is a 90-minute virtual workshop on Zoom, which brings together scholars from both within and outside of Africa to present their research to an audience primarily composed of academic faculty, both undergraduate and graduate students from Tanzania, as well as policy researchers from the government and private sector, among other participants.

11.   Annual Impact Evaluation Training Courses
The Department of Governance and Capacity Development organizes short-term training courses as part of strategies for strengthening the capacities of researchers and policy analysis in articulating research findings.
The training courses aim at imparting knowledge to both researchers and users of research findings to strengthen their capacity in the management of development processes in different sectors. The training course covers, the introduction to core methods of impact evaluation, introduction to fieldwork design for impact evaluation, and the introduction to data analysis using STATA software

In addition to the four (4) core areas of work itemized above, another major area work for the department is to host and implement some long term research and capacity development programs of interest to the Government of Tanzania, the ESRF and our partners. Some of the projects under implementation by the department at the moment include Impact Evaluation Laboratory and Tanzania Urbanization Laboratory.

The department organizes policy dialogues sessions as a way of communicating research findings produced within ESRF as well as findings of studies implemented by our partners. At least 10 policy dialogues are being implemented each year. Some examples of policy dialogue sessions implemented in recent years is indicated on events section.

Since 2012, the ESRF through Department of Governance and Capacity Development implements a series of annual conferences. The objective of these high level conferences is to bring together wide variety of stakeholders of development processes in the country and have a dialogue on a particular subject of topical relevancy to country’s development process. A list of the annual conferences is provided on conferences section on events.

The Department of Governance and Capacity Development organizes periodic public seminars aiming at engaging members of the general public in discussion forums of matter of relevancy to policy processes in the country. More information on public seminars is provided on the section on events.

1. Internship positions.

The Economic and Social Research Foundation offers internship opportunities to students for academic credit up to Masters Level. All internship positions are non-paid – and therefore students are expected to provide proof that they can meet their cost of living including medical coverage/insurance while in Dar es salaam at ESRF for the internship.

We accept qualified and enthusiastic students who have interest in Economic Policy and Management, Public Administration, Political Science, Economics, Finance/Accounting, Computer Science, International Trade, International Development Studies and other social science related research topics. Since computer skills are helpful in all areas of activities you shall be involved in at ESRF, students should have knowledge of some basics of computer applications. Students should also have excellent verbal and written communication skills, should be willing to work under constraints, abide by professional standards and be trusted with sensitive and confidential materials.

While at ESRF, students will be trained to research, analyze information and prepare reports and/or proposals. The duties that may be assigned to students include proposal writing, data collection and analysis, research report writing and other special projects. All students accepted for internship positions at ESRF shall be assigned supervisors with whom they shall work throughout their stay at the foundation. We encourage students to be open minded and willing to learn and adapt to new research techniques and methodologies as may be required in the various assignments they are involved in from time to time.

ESRF will report back to the candidates’ respective institutions on any progress and misconduct related to the attached candidates.

2. Work Schedule

Work schedules are flexible, depending upon individual office requirements.

3. How to Apply

To apply for internship opportunities, submit the following in one complete package to the address below:-

– Cover letter discussing career goals, computer skills, and your area of interest.
– Resume.
– Official university/college transcript(s); undergraduate and graduate (if applicable).
– Two current letters of recommendation from individuals who can speak for your background and skills in the performing arts and/or arts administration and your ability to learn. Letters must arrive in sealed envelopes with the signature of the letter writer appearing across the envelope flap.
– A letter from your sponsor/learning institutions confirming that you shall be able to finance your stay in Dar es Salaam and throughout your engagement with ESRF.

All materials submitted become the confidential property of the Economic and Social Research Foundation.

4. Application Deadlines.

All applications and related materials must arrive in one package and must be written in English or have a certified translation. They should reach ESRF 2 months prior to the commencement of the field attachment. An official acceptance letter shall be sent to the successful applicant(s) within two to four weeks after the deadline to confirm the dates of their internship period. If you don’t hear from us after that time please consider your application unsuccessful.

When reporting, the successful applicant(s) will be required to produce this acceptance letter to ESRF.

5. Foreign Students.

– Foreign students whose applications for internship positions at ESRF are successful will be required to process for appropriate visa and work permit before coming to Tanzania. The Foundation does not process these permits but may, upon request, issue a letter of confirmation that may be used to process for the permit at the Tanzanian high commission/embassy in the applicant’s country.
– Any successful applicants who report without appropriate work/research permit will be automatically disqualified (tourist visa is not acceptable).
– Applicants who are successful will be required to arrange for their accommodation in Dar es Salaam on their own and at their earliest convenience.