Call to Action (USAID/PEPFAR)

Overview

Through funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), EGPAF implemented the eight‐year global Call to Action (CTA) project in 12 countries, including Tanzania (from 2002 through 2007). This project sought to improve access and expand care and support for quality prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) services, while enhancing technical leadership and documenting successful program models. By project end, EGPAF had provided nearly four million women with access to PMTCT and antenatal care services. In Tanzania, EGPAF supported 428 health facilities and provided counseling and testing services to nearly 450,000 women.

Between 2003 and 2007, the CTA project, with the Tanzania Ministry of Health & Social Welfare (MOHSW), used a district approach to support the rapid scale-up of PMTCT services in five regions of the country to address the need for increased access to PMTCT in Tanzania. This district approach was consistent with the government’s national decentralization policy to enhance the speed and quality of the scale-up process, as well as to promote the long-term sustainability of services through the integration of PMTCT activities into existing structures and systems. With this approach, the government was able to dramatically scale up both the number of sites offering PMTCT services and the number of pregnant women being served. Key elements of this approach included building technical capacity to ensure rapid service expansion and continuity at the district level; ensuring financial sustainability of program activities; and creating mechanisms for ongoing supportive supervision and monitoring. The district approach was documented in a publication that was widely shared across EGPAF country programs.