Over time, there has been some progress in the sector in Tanzania; however, rural communities continue to lag behind urban communities in terms of maternal, newborn, and child health care. There was a 47% reduction of MMR between 1990 and 2012—870 to 232 deaths per 100,000 live births—but Tanzania did not make sufficient progress to attain it’s MDG of reducing MMR to 193 per 100,000 live births.
There is a comprehensive infrastructure of health care delivery in Tanzania but it is faced with enormous challenges in the operation field. Health care facilities in rural areas are generally less functional due to staff absenteeism, poor health provider skills, and inadequate basic supplies and equipment. Lack of good governance, allocation of insufficient resources, limited capacity of health managers, vertical programs with minimal integration, and suboptimal monitoring and supervision are some of the key underlying factors of the lacking performance.
