Tanzania
We work with the Government of Tanzania and partners to train health workers, improve childhood immunization rates, promote healthy behaviors for families and the environment, and inform financing programs for voluntary family planning.
MOMENTUM is partnering with nearly 40 countries to accelerate progress and advance USAID’s work to save lives and improve health outcomes for women, children, families, and communities in all of their diversity. MOMENTUM brings together specialized technical and country expertise through six distinct yet integrated awards with the depth and breadth of experience to spur reductions in maternal, newborn, and child mortality and morbidity.
Three MOMENTUM projects—Integrated Health Resilience, Country and Global Leadership, and Private Healthcare Delivery—work with the Government of Tanzania and multisectoral partners to improve the health of Tanzanians, particularly women and children.
Integrating Health and Conservation Efforts
In Tanzania’s conservation zones—the Greater Mahale Ecosystem and Northern Tanzania Rangelands—the health and well-being of people and the environment are intricately linked. MOMENTUM Integrated Health Resilience is forging partnerships that link voluntary family planning, conservation, and health in these two zones. MOMENTUM works with community leaders, community health workers, population health and environment champions, and households to promote behaviors that create better outcomes for families and the environment. These include using latrines, mosquito nets, and energy-saving stoves, as well as hand washing, boiling or treating drinking water, managing livestock, and using climate-smart agriculture and food practices.
MOMENTUM also works with community conservation microfinance groups to increase individuals’ and communities’ access to small-scale loans to undertake environmentally friendly activities that generate income, such as beekeeping, selling crops or domestic animals, and owning small shops. By highlighting the interconnected relationship between health and environment, these activities also promote sustainable practices within communities.
Meet Neemaeli Saitore, a community health worker with MOMENTUM Integrated Health Resilience in Tanzania’s Monduli district.
Investing in First-Time Parents
The needs of young first-time parents are often overlooked among those of other youth. In the Katavi and Kigoma regions, MOMENTUM Integrated Health Resilience convenes first-time parent peer groups—and smaller groups such as mothers and mothers-in-law—to improve knowledge, attitudes, care-seeking, and self-care practices related to maternal, newborn, and child health. New parents receive information and share experiences related to family planning; maternal and newborn health; and positive population, health, and environment practices and are referred to community health workers and health facilities for services.
Read more about how we’re working with first-time fathers in Tanzania, like farmer Maliki Andrew, to help them support their partners.
Investing in a Skilled Health Workforce
A skilled health workforce is essential for quality care and sustainable health service delivery. MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership partnered with Tanzania’s Ministry of Health to strengthen the capacity of health institutions at the national and zonal levels to deliver pre-service education to health workers from January 2021 to April 2022. This included developing training packages and curricula, training health coordinators and leaders on pre-service education resources, and helping immunization officers understand effective strategies for reaching children with routine immunizations.
MOMENTUM has also worked closely with the Ministry of Health to institutionalize continuous quality improvements at 47 public health training institutions to improve the learning environment for infrastructure, management, leadership, and classroom and clinical practices.
Reaching Every Child with Routine Immunizations
In Tanzania’s Mara, Kagera, Morogoro, Pwani, and Zanzibar regions, where routine immunization rates are low, MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership bolsters local efforts to improve immunization rates, especially for children who have not received even a single dose of the vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis. We partner with local governments in these five regions to plan and implement the Reaching Every District/Reaching Every Child approach, designed by the World Health Organization to improve immunization services in areas with low coverage. We partner with local implementers using a human-centered design approach to tailor interventions to each specific context. We also help these implementers use data to manage and adapt their programs to improve routine immunization access and uptake in hard-to-reach communities.
Learn how we’ve used the Reaching Every Child strategy to help increase routine immunization rates in Morogoro, Tanzania.
Vaccinating Tanzanians Against COVID-19 and Human Papillomavirus (HPV)
MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership is working with the Government of Tanzania to vaccinate 70 percent of Tanzanians over the age of 18 against COVID-19. Together with the Ministry of Health’s Immunization Vaccination Development Department and the President’s Office of Regional Administration and Local Government, MOMENTUM is providing technical support to identify and implement sustainable strategies to vaccinate priority populations and help more people get the second dose of the vaccine. In Zanzibar and other regions, MOMENTUM is providing ongoing support to ensure more adults get vaccinated.
In addition, MOMENTUM is supporting local governments to integrate COVID-19 vaccination with HPV vaccination and other routine immunizations, providing technical assistance to identify girls who are not fully vaccinated against HPV and address the root causes of low vaccination rates. We’re also working with the education sector and school health programs to integrate HPV with other adolescent health services.
Learn how community engagement is helping increase COVID-19 vaccination rates in Dodoma, Tanzania.
Understanding the Cost of Private and Public Health Care
In Tanzania, more than one in three women currently using modern contraception received their most recent family planning method or information from the private sector.1 Little is known about the cost of private health care delivery in the country, making it difficult for decision makers to allocate resources effectively within the health system. MOMENTUM Private Healthcare Delivery conducted a study comparing family planning service costs in the private and public sectors. The study explored the differences in prices paid for commodities, health staff salaries, supplies and equipment, and other costs related to family planning and maternal health services. The methodology and findings will inform decisions by stakeholders so that publicly funded health programs can decide how to best include private providers.
Our Achievements in Tanzania
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45,939 family planning clients served
From October 2021 to September 2022, MOMENTUM partners provided voluntary family planning methods to 45,939 clients in the Greater Mahale Ecosystem and Northern Tanzania Rangelands.
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881,765 infants vaccinated
From October 2020 to September 2021, MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership reached 881,765 infants with their first dose of the measles vaccine.
MOMENTUM Integrated Health Resilience: Government of Tanzania (regional government offices in Kigoma and Katavi (Western Tanzania) and Arusha and Manyara and the Local Government Authorities (LGAs) of the districts of Tanganyika, Uvinza, Monduli, Simanjiro, Babati, and Kiteto); The Nature Conservancy; Tanzania National Parks Authority; Amref Health Africa; Tanzania Health Promotion Support; Jane Goodall Institute; Northern Tanzania Rangelands Initiative
MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership: Government of Tanzania, Jhpiego; Johns Hopkins International Vaccine Access Center
Interested in partnering with us or learning more about our work in Tanzania? Contact us here or check out our regional reference brief.
Learn more about USAID’s programs in Tanzania.
References
- Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children – MoHCDGEC/Tanzania Mainland, Ministry of Health – MoH/Zanzibar, National Bureau of Statistics – NBS/Tanzania, Office of Chief Government Statistician – OCGS/Zanzibar, and ICF. 2016. Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey and Malaria Indicator Survey (TDHS-MIS) 2015-16. Dar es Salaam/Tanzania: MoHCDGEC, MoH, NBS, OCGS, and ICF.
Last updated February 2024.