Strengthening Tanzania’s Primary Healthcare System for Women and Girls

Through the support of the Government of Canada and other international donors the Health Basket Fund aims to support the primary health care elements of Tanzania’s Health Sector Strategic Plan V. This project provides coordinated health system strengthening and service delivery for primary health care across Tanzania. Project activities include: (1) delivering life-saving essential primary health care services such as antenatal and postnatal care emergency obstetric and newborn care and family planning; (2) conducting small-scale rehabilitation of health facilities to support the provision of gender-sensitive sexual and reproductive health and rights and maternal and adolescent health services; (3) training mentoring and supervising healthcare workers; (4) performing immunizations and preventing and treating communicable diseases such as malaria pneumonia diarrhea and COVID-19; and (5) supporting the strengthening health facility governance committees (including to enhance women’s participation). The Health Basket Fund provides 90% of funding directly to 5 591 public sector primary health facilities across mainland Tanzania. The project expects 71 million patient visits to take place annually at village-level health dispensaries and 48 million patient visits to take place at health centres.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) improved use of quality gender- and adolescent-responsive primary health care services including for sexual and reproductive health and maternal newborn child and adolescent health particularly by women adolescent girls and children; and (2) strengthened public primary health care system accountability and responsiveness to needs of the poorest and most marginalized particularly women adolescent girls and children.