USAID/Tanzania’s maternal and child health programs prioritize high-impact interventions to improve health outcomes for the most vulnerable women, newborns, and children under five. At the national level, USAID provides technical assistance to the Government of Tanzania on the mainland and Zanzibar to strengthen the quality of maternal, newborn, and child health programs. Examples include the development of clinical guidelines for normal delivery and emergency obstetric and newborn care; support introducing new vaccines into the routine immunization platform; and national social and behavior change campaigns informing mothers about important health services through mass media, community health workers, and phone messaging. Recent USAID efforts with the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly, and Children have focused on creating a framework for respectful maternity care that incorporates effective communication, respect and dignity, and emotional support during the perinatal period.

While these efforts have helped reduce under-five mortality in conjunction with interventions by the President’s Malaria Initiative and the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, progress has been slower in terms of maternal mortality and neonatal mortality. To this end, USAID supports further reductions in maternal and neonatal mortality by addressing system weaknesses that impact the quality of care. Assistance to the national childhood immunization program, including the launch of the rotavirus and pneumococcal vaccines in 2013, has targeted two of the leading causes of death in children under five: pneumonia and diarrhea. Since that time, surveillance data shows that the presence of rotavirus infection in children with acute diarrhea has already fallen from 23 percent to 13 percent.