What has Tanzania's Government pledged?

What has the Tanzanian government pledged to do to save the lives of our mothers and babies? Here's an overview of some of the public pledges.

Mama Ye! will be working with our communities to make sure these pledges are met.

"We must significantly increase the allocation of financial resources for maternal and newborn health. To meet the targets we have set, we need to increase funding for maternal and newborn health by US $5 billion annually by 2010 and by an additional US $8 billion annually by 2015.It is also important that we invest in increasing the number of skilled service providers – that is nurses, midwives, lab technicians and doctors. We need an additional 1 million skilled attendants by 2010 to ensure that lifesaving care is available to all women throughout pregnancy and childbirth." President Jakaya Kikwete speaking on the commitment to progress for mothers, newborns and children, 28th September 2008.

The Abuja Declaration - a commitment to ensure 15% of the annual budget is used to improve the health sector

In April 2001, at a meeting of African leaders in the Nigerian capital, the Tanzanian Government pledged to support the Abuja Declaration, that at least 15% of the government's annual budget is used to improve the health sector. No deadline was set for meeting this commitment. Taken from the "African Summit on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Other Related Infectious Diseases".

The Maputo Plan of Action - to ensure universal access to reproductive health services

In September 2006, at a meeting in the Mozambican capital, Tanzania pledged to support the Maputo Plan which addresses "the serious threat" to "the right to health in Africa" (with) "poor sexual and reproductive health as a leading killer."The Tanzanian Government plan to address this threat through the following means:

  • Integrating HIV/AIDS services into sexual and reproductive health and rights
  • Promoting family planning as a crucial factor in attaining the Millennium Development Goals
  • Supporting the sexual and reproductive health needs of adolescents and young people
  • Addressing unsafe abortions
  • Delivering quality and affordable health services to promote safe motherhood, child survival, and maternal, newborn and child health
  • Adopting strategies that would ensure reproductive health commodity security
  • Increasing resources for sexual and reproductive health, in alignment with the Abuja Declaration

The UN's Every Woman Every Child - a commitment to save the lives of women and children by 2015

In September 2010, at a summit for the UN Millenium Development Goals in New York, Tanzania was one of the governments that pledged to "save the lives of 16 million women and children by 2015".Tanzania pledged to do this by:

  • Increasing health sector spending from 12% to 15% of national budget by 2015
  • Increasing annual enrollment in health training institutions from 3,000 to 7,000
  • Improving recruitment, deployment, and retention through new and innovative schemes for performance related pay focusing on maternal, newborn and child health services 
  • Reinforcing the implementation of the policy for provision of free reproductive health services and expand pre-payment schemes
  • Increasing contraceptive prevalence rate from 28% to 60%
  • Expanding coverage of health facilities
  • Providing basic and comprehensive emergency obstetric and newborn care
  • Improving referral and communications systems, including radio call communications and mobile technology
  • Introducing new innovative low cost ambulances
  • Extending prevention of mother to child transmission to all reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health services
  • Securing 80% coverage of long-lasting insecticide treated nets for children and pregnant women
  • Increasing proportion of children exclusively breastfed from 41% to 80%

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