In recent years, Tanzania has emerged as a national success story in malaria prevention and control. Between 2005 and 2016, nearly all malaria indicators for Tanzania improved. Efforts to control malaria in Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous archipelago that is part of Tanzania, have returned particularly dramatic results: In 2011, malaria prevalence reached near-elimination levels of less than 1 percent, and has been maintained at low levels ever since.
However, malaria remains the leading communicable disease in Tanzania, with 93 percent of the 60 million population at risk. Challenges today include increased disease burden in adolescents and adults, mounting insecticide resistance, weak malaria commodity procurement supply chain, and uneven technical and program management and implementation capacity at national, regional and district levels.
The targeted approach of USAID Okoa Maisha Dhibiti Malaria (OMDM)—Save Lives, End Malaria promotes programmatic integration, local ownership, capacity strengthening, and maximizes data for decision-making to reduce the overall burden of malaria and move Tanzania closer to elimination. The program builds on successes of the USAID-supported Tanzania Vector Control Scale-up Project, implemented by RTI from 2010–2016.
Through direct support to mainland Tanzania’s National Malaria Control Program (NMCP) and the Zanzibar Malaria Elimination Program (ZAMEP), OMDM’s activities focus on:
- Sustaining results through programmatic integration, local ownership and capacity strengthening;
- Maximizing data for decision making;
- Integrating gender into our technical and management approach; and
- Leveraging national and global knowledge and networks.
Achieving Success through a Learning Agenda
Underpinning all activities is the program’s MERLA approach, providing performance management, continuous learning, data-driven and evidence-based decision making, and measuring how programmatic outputs, outcomes and impact will be achieved, documented and communicated. The program’s Learning Agenda incorporates USAID’s Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) approach and will guide program implementation, using learning on a continuous basis to refine activities and strengthen the government’s ability to carry out data-driven decision-making.