Tanzania making efforts to strengthen Family Planning services

Tanzania is determined to increase the current Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) from 27 percent (modern methods) to 60 by 2015, by striving to meet the 25% unmet need and expand family planning services to new users especially young people in reproductive age.

Unmet need refers to the percentage of married women of reproductive age who are able to bear children but who want to wait at least two years before their next birth or who want to stop childbearing altogether, but are not using any method of family planning.

This move will undoubtedly involve investing in family planning both in terms of funds to procure family planning commodities as well as the necessary human resource to reach out to a multitude of clients across the country.

Speaking with Senior Editors who are championing increased access to family planning services as a right to men and women in determining when, how many, and whether or not to have children, the Minister for Health and Social Welfare, Dr. Hussein Mwinyi affirmed the government’s resolve to double the number of contraceptives users to 4.2 million by 2015.

Amplifying President Jakaya Kikwete’s speech delivered at the London Family Planning Summit on July 11, 2012, Minister Mwinyi underscore the significance of meeting the family planning needs of Tanzanians in the reproductive age, and especially women, because it this would help them better plan their families and lives. “There are women with desire to use family planning to space or stop bearing but lack access to these services and they are unable to meet their life aspirations,” he said.

“We have the responsibility to ensure all women with desire to use family planning methods do so to enable them manage their fertility and determine the number of children they want to have, and could adequately cater for” Minister Mwinyi said as he pledged continued government investment in family planning services.

He also expressed hope that the pledges made at the London Summit on Family Planning that set a target of reaching an additional 120 million women in the poorest countries with life saving family planning information, services and supplies by 2020, would materialize and boost government efforts. a critical goal to plan around.

As a catalyst to intensifying family planning programs in various countries including Tanzania, the Summit’s commitments to Tanzania would mean channelling support to procurement of cost-effective commodities, support to scaling up services and support to innovative and new approaches to reaching the poorest and most vulnerable women and girls, noted Dr. Mwinyi, adding that the government would also play its part.

The Ministry’s move to set one billion shillings for family planning services in the 2013/14 financial year is a welcome step especially because it is drawn from governments own sources as promised by President Jakaya Kikwete when announcing Tanzania’s commitments at the London Summit last year.

Increased investments would enable the country to address challenges such as frequent and early child bearing that exacerbate pregnancy and childbirth complications among women, placing them at high risk of death and morbidity. Additionally, unplanned pregnancies and abortions (especially among young girls) contribute to the high maternal mortality rate of 454 per every 100,000 live births, one of the highest in Africa. The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare is determined to change the situation.

For any reasonable individual, the country’s 2.6% annual population growth rate according to the 2012 National Census that has remained almost stagnant over the past decade requires serious attention. Already, government economists have raised an alarm that such a growth within Tanzania’s fledgling economy would only be disastrous and further deepen poverty levels.

With the current annual population growth rate Tanzania’s gross domestic product is supposed to grow above 8%, as opposed to the current growth of 6.5%. Based on this current trend, Dr Mwinyi told the Senior Editors that the government would from now onwards take serious consideration of family planning in its national development planning. Family planning would now also involve the Planning Commission and Ministry of Finance, and not simply the Health Ministry.

Along with these efforts, Minister Mwinyi talked about his ministry’s efforts to address the human resource for health crisis, which is evident in inadequate capacity, particularly in administering long acting and permanent family planning methods in most health facilities.

“Along with other challenges the health sector is facing a shortage of 47 percent of personnel. We plan to train Community Health Workers for one year and retain them throughout the country. This is an important cadre in community mobilization and sensitization towards increasing uptake of family planning services, as well as other related health services,” said Dr. Mwinyi.

Community Health Workers contribute to a number of health services and are important change agents in demand creation activities, community education and knowledge on family planning and other critical services such as nutrition education so as to combat widespread malnutrition.

These are critical steps by the government and the London Summit gathering co-hosted by the UK Government, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in collaboration with UNFPA, will go down in history as a great opportunity for government, donors, private manufacturers, and civil society organizations to take stock of progress in family planning, determine how resources could collectively be mobilized, how programs could be sustained to expand access and method mix to those needing the services.

The Summit set the tone for global, regional, national and community family planning initiatives to ensure family planning continues to be prioritized in national developments both in terms of resource allocation and utilization and in ensuring the right to access family planning methods voluntarily.

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