Tanzania
Goals of the partnership with NCD Synergies
The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in Tanzania has been partnering with NCD Synergies since August 2015 to support national planning and operationalization, with a focus on monitoring and evaluation at the national level for NCDs and injuries in Tanzania. These efforts will improve Tanzania’s capacity to monitor equitable access to care and the NCD and injury disease burden specific to Tanzania’s poorest populations.
Working from the revised national NCD strategic plan, the goals of the partnership have been to:
- Support the development of a monitoring and evaluation framework for NCDs to monitor population disease burden and effective coverage of interventions.
- Further national strategic plan development and operational planning efforts by the MOHSW.
Project milestones
- Tanzania established a National NCDI Poverty Committee in November 2016 and expects to release a final report in 2018.
- In August 2015, NCD Synergies began a short-term secondment to the Tanzania Ministry of Health and Social Welfare to support national planning for NCDs in Liberia, with focus on monitoring disease burden and effective coverage of interventions. This work continues through the Tanzania NCDI Poverty Committee.
National NCDI Poverty Committee
In November 2016, Tanzania established a national NCDI Poverty Committee, focused on national priority-setting for NCDs in settings of poverty. The Tanzania NCDI Poverty Committee functions as a sub-group of the existing multi-sectoral NCD group in the Ministry of Health. The Committee is chaired by Dr. Mary Mayige of Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences.
The story of NCDs and injuries in Tanzania
A large East African nation of more than 47 million people, Tanzania has made significant strides in both health and poverty at a national level. Still, in 2012, the World Bank estimated that 43 percent of the country lived on $1.25/day or less. The World Health Organization estimates that 30 percent of deaths in Tanzania in 2012 were due to noncommunicable diseases and injuries. As of 2010, the country was spending about $41 per capita annually on health care, which amounts to approximately 7 percent of GDP.
The NCD Division in the Tanzania Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW) is responsible for developing policies and monitoring progress in the response to NCDs and injuries in Tanzania. The Division has existed since 2008. Tanzania was one of the first African countries to develop a national strategic plan for NCDs. The initial national strategic plan for NCDs (from 2009–2015) has been revised and finalized with costing for the 2015–2020 period.
Sources: World Databank, UNICEF, Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics, Tanzania Ministry of Health and Social Welfare