HP+ Tanzania Marks the End-of-Project with Conversations on Family Planning Advocacy and Budgeting
The Health Policy Plus (HP+) project in Tanzania, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), hosted a series of policy and advocacy webinars to mark and celebrate the project’s achievements in family planning in Tanzania over the past six years. HP+ Tanzania country director, Stella Mujaya, welcomed guests from USAID, government, and development partners to four webinars held over several days in September and October 2021. The series kicked off with discussion around the mapping of organizations advocating for family planning. The second webinar focused on budget advocacy, the third on sustainable financing, and the fourth on population and development linkages.
The sessions, each of which included a lively discussion, were designed to share HP+’s experience and lessons learned in its work toward improving the enabling environment for equity in access to and use of family planning services through a comprehensive approach of capacity strengthening, improving systems accountability, and mobilizing domestic resources. At all levels, HP+ Tanzania worked alongside local partners to identify policy needs, gather evidence, and undertake advocacy and policy reforms to implement solutions. A participant from development partner Engender Health noted that in the past efforts were fragmented, while now, “we come together, we highlight the budget priorities, we look into budget lines, and we set our asks in a smarter way to allow decisionmakers to attend to them.”
The end-of-project series in Tanzania showcased HP+ approaches and engaged partners and project leaders in Tanzania who continue driving change toward better health outcomes. The discussions included participants from the Advance Family Planning (AFP) project and civil society organizations that are engaged with the HP+ Champions for Accelerating Family Planning Success in Tanzania (CATALYST) grant mechanism: Tanzania Communication and Development Centre, White Ribbon Alliance, Young and Alive Initiative Tanzania, Civic Education Teachers Association, and Health and Development Tanzania.
For more information about HP+’s work in Tanzania, see the Tanzania results summary brief.
