Project profile — Improving Access to Reproductive, Maternal and Newborn Health in Mwanza, Tanzania - IMPACT

• Tanzania (100.00%)

• Health, General: Health policy and administrative management (12110) (10.00%)
• Basic Health: Basic health care (12220) (20.00%)
• Reproductive health care:
Reproductive health care (13020) (25.00%)
Family planning (13030) (10.00%)
Personnel development for population and reproductive health (13081) (35.00%)

• Gender equality (significant objective)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (not targeted)
• Participatory development and good governance (not targeted)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Children's issues (principal objective)
• Youth Issues (significant objective)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Disability (not targeted)
• Nutrition (significant objective)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)

The goal of this project is to significantly improve maternal and newborn health for beneficiaries through improving the availability of quality maternal and newborn health services in underserved districts; and increasing the utilization of maternal and newborn health services for women and their families in target districts of all seven districts of Mwanza region, Tanzania. The project directly targets pregnant mothers and newborns. Beneficiaries also include men of reproductive age who would benefit from health promotion and sensitization activities aimed at improving maternal and newborn health outcomes. IMPACT increases access to quality services across the continuum of care, from community to facility, while strengthening leadership capacity at the health facility, local authority and community levels; and increasing community utilization of maternal and newborn health services Project activities include: (1) repairing, upgrading and equipping 80 public health facilities; (2) delivering fully functional basic emergency obstetric and newborn care (BEmONC) at 67 dispensaries and health centres and comprehensive emergency obstetric and newborn care services (CEmONC ) at 13 hospitals or health centers; (3) providing training and supportive supervision, in collaboration with the Regional and Community Health Management Teams, to enhance health facility managers’ ability to plan, budget and lead quality service delivery; (4) training and empowering 80 village health committees to build linkages with community health structures and effectively plan and enable a maternal and newborn health-supportive community environment; and (5) building the capacity of health workers and community health workers in high-impact packages such as Helping Babies Breathe, Kangaroo Mother Care, EmONC and Focused Antenatal Care. The project is implemented in collaboration with Aga Khan Foundation Tanzania, Aga Khan University and Aga Khan Medical Services.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) increased utilization of maternal and newborn health services by women and their families in targeted districts in Tanzania; and (2) improved availability of quality maternal and newborn health services in underserved districts in Tanzania.

Results achieved as of the end of the project (March 2022) include: (1) trained regional health management team members (23 women; 22 men), district social welfare officers, health care workers, and police gender desk officers on sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) identification, referral, and response to support referrals of SGBV survivors; (2) provided 305 quarterly supportive supervision sessions and 86 mentorship visits at the 80 targeted health facilities in partnership with the regional health management team, reaching 275 health workers (165 women and 110 men); (3) improved 23 health facilities’ gender-responsive and environmentally-friendly infrastructure, and 80 health facilities received essential medical equipment and supplies for improved reproductive, maternal and newborn health service delivery; (4) provided 717 community health workers (388 women; 329 men) with training and mentorship as part of the project’s comprehensive health promotion strategy for improved reproductive, maternal and newborn health outcomes; (5) trained 717 community health workers (390 women; 327 men) on early antenatal care attendance, nutrition, and breastfeeding. The health workers trained then visited 132,324 households and conducted 6,467 health promotion meetings and community conversations. The meetings held benefitted a total of 254,861 community members (141,946 women; 112,915 men); (6) trained 42 health workers (16 women; 26 men) in anesthesia to address the region’s difficulties delivering comprehensive emergency obstetric and neonatal care at health facilities; (7) trained 700 community health workers (379 women; 321 men) and 71 community health worker supervisors (54 women; 17 men) to review community-level data collection and use; (8) trained rapid response teams on COVID-19 case management and logistics operations. Teams included 80 health workers (35 women; 45 men), ambulance drivers and burial teams; and (9) trained 647 community health workers (357 women; 290 men) on COVID-19 signs and symptoms, prevention strategies, creating awareness within the community, and gender equality issues related to the pandemic.

• Proactive disclosure