Abstract

This paper explores various households livelihood coping strategies in the urban informal settlement of Mlalakuwa in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. It employed a case study method in the urban informal settlement of Mlalakuwa. Multiple data collection tools were employed, in which semi-structured interviews with key informants, field observations, sketches, mapping and photographic registration, were used in collecting primary data through household survey, while literature review, was used in collecting secondary data. Descriptive statistical and content analysis were employed in data analysis.The paper revealed that; households in the study are involved in a lot of livelihood activities, such as urban agriculture and livestock keeping (i.e. pigs, chicken and cow), as well as trading these goods in the market, shop keeping, selling pharmaceutical, monetary services (banks, and mobile money), brewing of local drink, running female and male hair dressing saloons as well as selling their products, vehicle and motor cycles repairing, milling machines, taxi-running and driving, motor cycles-running and driving, mobile shoe shining and mending, food processing and vending, food product street hawking, fish and meat butchery, selling fuel wood and charcoal, tailoring and cloth retailing, carpentry, welding and metal working, bricks and pavement material making, building materials retailing, oil and gas trading, etc. drawn by combining both tangible and intangible assets, as a strategy in coping with life stress and shocks. It argues that the informal economy plays a crucial role not only for the lower income earners, but also the middle and higher income earners, with everyone depending on one another, in different livelihood activities. Living together in one area, the three income earning groups, involves themselves in agricultural (farm) and non-agricultural (non-farm), monetary (economics) or non-monetary (non-economics), livelihood activities which all ernes them capital, as coping strategy against life stress and shocks. The paper concludes that; the households in the Mlalakuwa urban informal settlement, survives by combining various assets as a livelihood coping and recovery strategies based on their indigenous strategies and knowledge, so as to recover from daily life stress and shocks.