Adequate allocation of funds to family planning programmes is vital for the country to realise 60 per cent contraceptive prevalence by 2015, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Programme Specialist Health Systems, Felista Bwana, said in Dar es Salaam.
“Tanzania has pledged to increase contraceptive prevalence rate from 27 per cent at present to 60 per cent as per the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) targets, but the trend is not promising especially due to meagre resource allocation in terms of fund,” she said when briefing the media.
She added that President Jakaya Kikwete in July, 2012 London Summit promised to mobilise resources to increase contraceptive prevalence from 2.4 million people last year to 6.6 million people in 2015.
“Data shows that there is a slow pace in the increase in the number of people using family planning in the country and as a result fertility rate has also declined slightly, as it is still very high when compared to the country’s economy,” she said.
Health demographic survey indicates that in 1990′s fertility rate was 6.3 per cent and dropped slightly to 5.4 per cent in 2010. “We need to have some changes in terms of our commitment, change our priorities by including family planning as one of the priorities because family planning is expensive,” she said.
Tanzania has an average of 27 per cent of married people using contraceptives in planning their families, with Kilimanjaro Region ranked highest with 50 per cent of people using the methods while Mara ranked the lowest with 10 per cent of contraceptive usage.
“We also need to build political support for family planning, which means we need to tie family planning to economic development, have more training and support for health care personnel and increased interpersonal communication on myths and misconceptions,” she said.
Ms Bwana added that for the target to be reached the government should allocate 70 per cent of the National Family Planning Costed Plan launched in 2009 in the procurement of contraceptives. At the 2012 London Summit on Family Planning, President Kikwete highlighted Tanzania’s continued efforts to improve family planning.
He said the National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (MKUKUTA II) which has a strong family planning component and the National Family Planning Costed Implementation Plan (2010), which endeavours to reach a contraceptive prevalence target of 60 per cent of all women by 2015 and will require 88.2 million US dollars between 2010 and 2015.
Stakeholders have held that national budget allocation and actual spending for contraceptives remains weak, though modest government funds for family planning increased three-fold from 2010 to 2011 and the national budget includes a line item for contraceptive commodities.
Though Mr Kikwete has actively engaged in Every Woman Every Child at the global level, his five-year development plan issued last year has only one reference to family planning.
By ABDULWAKIL SAIBOKO, Tanzania Daily News
