Tanzania, a champion in efforts to strengthen preparedness and response to public health emergencies, is the second nation to work with the WHO Strategic Partnership for IHR and Health Security (SPH) on a resource mapping tool that shows what financial and technical resources exist to build IHR (2005) capacities and health security in the country.

An October 10-12 resource mapping workshop in Bagamoyo, Tanzania, concluded with the Tanzanian health ministry announcing that the government will use the resource mapping tool to monitor the nation’s progress in completing health security activities and implementing the country’s National Action Plan for Health Security (NAPHS). The tool will be used to facilitate the national IHR Technical Working Group quarterly meetings.

“For us the tool is very important in terms of understanding exactly where we are in terms of the progress of activity implementation and also understanding new potential partners,” said Dr Janneth Maridadi Mghamba, assistant director of epidemiology at the Tanzania Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children.

Among the implementation gaps identified during the workshop was in the area of zoonosis, where activities in several plans are still in the early stage with insufficient technical assistance and funds.

Tanzania is the second country, after Sierra Leone, to use the resource mapping tool, which was developed by SPH to support Member States in their effort to scale up multisectoral preparedness and accelerate the implementation of the International Health Regulations (IHR, 2005).

Tanzania in 2016 was the first country to undergo the Joint External Evaluation (JEE) of its core health security capacities as part of the IHR monitoring and evaluation framework and the first to follow up the JEE recommendations with development of a NAPHS in 2017.

“I think it’s the right time now that we also lead on the issue of resource mapping,” said Dr Mohamed Ally Mohamed, Tanzania’s director of health quality assurance, who expressed hope that the experience of Tanzania with the resource mapping tool will be helpful to other countries.

Workshop participants in Tanzania used the resource mapping tool to begin harmonizing the country’s different plans and recommendations, including NAPHS, JEE, the 2018 Ebola Virus Disease contingency plan, After Action Reviews for cholera epidemic and anthrax outbreaks, simulation exercises and the National Bridging Workshop roadmap. Priority activities were identified through the harmonization of the different plans.

Participants also began the process of using the tool to map all the health security activities that donors are supporting in the country, a process which provides visibility for partner projects and allows policymakers, donors and partners to see where gaps in investment exist.

“Most important we had the opportunity of really identifying the partners who support various technical areas. This, for us, is very important because it will minimize duplication and we will understand the areas where we do not have partners, and where the government might be able to contribute in these areas which are under-resourced,“ Dr Mghamba said.

Dr Grace Saguti of the WHO country office in Tanzania said the tool can be useful for advocacy.

“This can be an advocacy tool for the partners, stakeholders in the country, in order for them to see what has already been done, where the gaps are, and to provide support to areas of need. The tool will show which areas are mostly supported, which areas are not supported, and how much has been put into the areas which have been supported. And that will create awareness of areas of gap in order to strengthen the core capacities in the country,” she said.

The October workshop involved WHO, the health ministry, representatives of the prime minister and president’s offices, and partners including PATH, AMREF Health Africa, US CDC and USAID.

Under the new Global Programme of Work (GPW 13), the WHO Health Emergencies Programme will contribute heavily to strategic priority of having 1 billion more people better protected from health emergencies. WHO SPH, which works closely with WHO regional and country offices, developed the resource mapping tool as part of the effort to accomplish this objective and strengthen health security on the national, regional and global levels.

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