Universal Health Coverage in Low-Income Countries : Tanzania’s Efforts to Overcome Barriers to Equitable Health Service Access
During the past decade, Tanzania has experienced steady economic growth, with average annual growth rates of between 6 and 7 percent. Despite this positive trend in the economy, poverty rates have not decreased accordingly; more than one-fourth of...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/820591516179637357/Universal-health-coverage-in-low-income-countries-Tanzania-s-efforts-to-overcome-barriers-to-equitable-health-service-access http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29174 |
| Summary: | During the past decade, Tanzania has
experienced steady economic growth, with average annual
growth rates of between 6 and 7 percent. Despite this
positive trend in the economy, poverty rates have not
decreased accordingly; more than one-fourth of Tanzania’s 53
million inhabitants live below the poverty line and almost
10 percent live in extreme poverty. The health sector has
been identified as a policy priority area in Tanzania. The
main purpose of this case study is to describe Tanzania’s
efforts to promote universal health coverage (UHC) inclusive
of the poor, and to identify challenges and opportunities
for the health system to advance on this path in a coherent
and integrated fashion. Given the large number of
interventions implemented in the health sector, efforts were
selected based on their potential to address the challenges
to the equitable access to health services, namely the poor
quality of health services and the limited financial
protection. The paper is organized as follows: section one
gives introduction. Section two describes supply-side
efforts and features the devolution of health services, the
primary health care (PHC) strengthening program, and
results-based financing. Section three analyzes Tanzania’s
social protection program and synthesizes the country’s
experience with user fees, as well as their impact on
financial protection. Section four features the community
health funds, Tanzania’s most explicit effort to increase
financial protection in health. Section five assesses the
implementation of these initiatives. Section six highlights
some opportunities to include the poor and address the
challenges to pro-poor UHC in Tanzania. |
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