The government has been called upon to pay special attention to some areas relating to gender, education and access to basic socio-economic needs to address inequalities existing among social groups in the country.

According to researchers, such inequalities have remained persistent for the past 20 years, resulting in mismatch between economic growth and poverty reduction.

“We expected some improvement but inequality has remained stable for the past twenty years as a result the economic growth has only benefited few citizens,” a senior researcher with Policy Research for Development (REPOA), Mr Lucas Katera, said in Dar es Salaam yesterday.

Mr Katera made the remarks when presenting his paper in a validation workshop on inequality in the context of Africa’s structural transformation.

He said that although the government has put in place various policies and strategies to address the inequalities, still some areas needed special attention.

Mr Katera said Education Training Policy 2014 provides equal opportunity to all in education, universal primary education up to lower secondary and legal action to parents failing to take their children to secondary school; while Employment Policy of 2008 revised in 2016 has identified youth unemployment as an area that also needed special attention.