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Tanzania

National leadership:

The Department of Social Welfare, within the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, is responsible for the well-being of vulnerable children. The Department has been supported to develop national standards of OVC care and services by Family Health International (FHI).

Contact persons for the QI Initiative:

Elizabeth Lema, USAID, elema@usaid.gov; Levina Kikoyo, FHI, lkikoyo@fhitz.org; Jane Calder, Pact, jane@pacttz.org

Background

National standards have been developed by the Department and are due to be approved by the National Technical Committee on OVC/MVC (Most Vulnerable Children).

OVC partners have begun to take measures to improve the quality of the services provided to children and their families, including developing guidelines for volunteers on reaching the standards and outcomes expected in relation to work with MVC and their families.

Achievements

• Defined national quality standards for OVC services and reached agreement on the national document at the national Implementing Partners’ Group (IPG) in October, 2007
• Held a national stakeholders workshop
• A representative from Tanzania supported the development of quality standards for Ethiopia
• A number of organisations from Tanzania attended the regional QI training event in Dar-es-Salaam in September 2007
• Pact shared with all U.S. Government partners its experience on a comprehensive approach to improve quality of the service provision for OVC
• Standards and related guidelines have been drafted and have been used over the last six months by volunteers in five regions (Mbeya, Mtwara, Kagera, Tabora, and Mara) under the Jali Watoto programme
• TUNAJALI programme under FHI technical leadership has oriented regional teams in five regions (Morogoro, Mwanza, Coast, Iringa, and Njombe) and OVC project officers of its sub-grantees about the implementation of QI
• Pact Tanzania’s Jali Watoto programme is working with the Health Care Improvement Project to implement learning groups in two districts: Nzega and Kyela
• One-day workshop was held with all U.S.Government OVC partners to discuss the experience to date of improving quality in Tanzania
• A task force is being established on QI in Tanzania, involving the Government of Tanzania, USAID, and other leading partners
• The Department of Social Welfare is leading on-going discussions within the Implementing Partners Group on quality improvement

Current Focus

We are currently establishing learning groups in Nzega and Kyela, and a national level task force to address quality issues. U.S. Government partners are being encouraged to take measures to improve quality and to learn lessons from within country as well as from elsewhere on QI measures.

Challenges & Lessons

• Training the large number of volunteers in the many organisations we work with,is a challenge.
• QI will be well implemented if direct guardian/caretakers for OVC are being trained, not the volunteers. Due to the scarcity of funds and the big number of caretakers, this is not possible.
• The scarcity of social welfare officers to support field officers in their work with children and families poses a challenge.
• Tanzania has made great strides in implementing a system and process for identifying the most vulnerable children and establishing the Most Vulnerable Children (MVC) Committees in the communities. Community OVC partners are unable, due to limited resources, to provide services to all identified MVC, causing problems within families and communities.
• The development of standards is not enough: A thorough analysis of the underlying causes of poor quality service provision is required, as is a response that takes effect from the organisational level to the family level.
• Standards have to be simple, translated into the local language, and easily used by volunteers working at the family level.

Last updated June 2008

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