CEO’S REMARKS ON THE OVERVIEW OF THE 5 YEARS MKAPA FOUNDATION STRATEGIC BUSINESS PLAN (2019-2024)

This is the third Strategic Business Plan of the BMF which will cover the period from July 2019- June 2024, and it is building upon the past experience and lessons learnt from the ended 2^nd Strategic Plan.

In the next 5 years, we envision Healthy lives and well-being for all, in Tanzania and the rest of Africa.The main purpose being to complement and support Governments’ efforts to deliver health care services reaching all people equitably, in both Tanzania Mainland and Isles, as well as other neighboring Africa regions through strategic partnerships. Thus our mission aims to contribute towards attainment of better health outcomes through innovative health and related system solutions. To achieve our vision, the Mkapa Foundation will steer its complementary efforts on Health Systems strengthening to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Universal Health Coverage (UHC) targets at country level.

We understand that we cannot bring change on our own. BMF niche of working in “partnerships for results” will be further strengthened in the coming years, by cementing our trusted cooperation with the Government of Tanzania, at the same time sustain the mutual partnership with existing and new traditional and non-traditional partners, including donors, civil societies, professional bodies, private sector, researchers, media, and other interested parties.

We plan to closely collaborate with the Government, to reinforce production of rare and highly demanded health cadres from Training institutions, at the same time capitalize on tapping the qualified health professionals from the labour market, by innovatively engaging them as “Fellows” to make the facilities fully operational, thus having the required health workforce as per workload, at the same time build capacity of central to district management teams on effective Human Resource management.

Moreover we aim to supplement the health facility services with community based initiatives by testing and rolling out the National community based program guideline, particularly the community care providers that have so far proven to be resourceful on the first hand curative care at the community, health promotion and prevention.

Whereas we recognize the encouraging progress at country level in combatting communicable diseases, but yet we are lagging behind with few indicators of HIV, TB and Malaria, and now the rapid emerging crisis on non-communicable diseases, BMF will ensure effective integration of these services in a gendered and right-based approach, for maximum impact. This shall be coupled with reinforcement of leadership and governance pillar of the health systems, at the different tiers of the health sector delivery systems, in-order to deliver quality health services on Communicable and Non-Communicable diseases.

As we are aware our country has made minimal progress on maternal health outcomes and the adolescent group is vulnerable and at high risk with most of the health conditions, BMF shall continue investment on health systems to combat maternal, new-born, child and adolescent health situation, especially in rural settings. This shall further be integrated with nutritional service, which is key for health outcomes amongst this respective group of the population.

Another health systems pillar to be embarked by BMF is the health financing initiatives to ensure the Universal Health Coverage targets are reached, particularly increasing the iCHF coverage, at the same time support the Government in resource mobilization and effective financial management at different levels of service delivery.

As we are all aware that BMF has acquired wealth of knowledge for more than a decade, and this ought to be reinforced to enable us portray the phenomenon of being a Centre of Excellence. On this regards, we will intensify Implementation Research and Knowledge Management through ensuring robust systems, guidelines and structures of collecting and use of evidence-based information that is expected to stimulate health related policies and guidelines, and on the same vein influence high impact interventions.

Furthermore,     BMF will adopt technology in most of its work and embark on digital transformation to reach a larger public, improve productivity, efficient use of resources, and improve its programs and services to the beneficiaries. Innovations through application of technology in service delivery will be reinforced including capacity development of health workers and performance management systems.

Our decade experience and lessons learnt on health systems strengthening as well as the dual-prong approach of strengthening “demand” and “supply” in health programs, this will be well documented and scaled up to inform policy and strategic documents formulation and implementation by the Government and partners. In addition, BMF’s long outstanding and strategic policy dialogue engagement will continue in transparency and constructive manner, as a cross cutting approach. This shall take into account the value added and win-win situation of both State and Non-State Actors, for better health outcomes of the society.

Result Based management will be at the heart of implementation of the BMF Plan. As for the Programmatic Performance Management, this shall be monitored and evaluated with well- defined and robust systems and structures set up within the Institution, which will link and be aligned to the Government reporting frameworks, as much as possible. We will also track and collect indicators to monitor and evaluate the interventions that are designed to contribute to the realization of national impact indicators, as stipulated in the various national documents. Moreover our Institutional Performance Management Systems and structure will further be strengthened and linked with accountability and rewarding systems within the Institution.

To remain credible and relevant, we will continue reinforcing our leadership and management capacity, as we all as our operational systems and technical excellence within the Institution, so as to align with the increasing demand and expectations of quality services, from our clients and stakeholders. We will further remain committed to strengthening our internal controls, financial and grants management systems by ensuring integration of digitalization in most of our operational systems, thus leading to more efficiencies and effectiveness.

To operationalize the Strategic Business Plan in five years it is estimated to cost approximately 156billion (equivalent to 68million US $), and the BMF Board and Management is dedicated to deploy coherent, innovative and well-informed resource mobilization strategy that will secure both financial and technical resources to attain its goals.

The Board of Trustees, Management and Staff thank the Irish Aid and UNAIDS for their financial and in-kind support, respectively, during the entire development process of this Strategic Business Plan.