United Republic of Tanzania

Adolescents living with HIV (ALHIV) encounter diverse challenges in school settings that impact their well-being and academic performance. This UNICEF-supported study sought to delve into the viewpoints of teachers and administrators regarding the care and support accessible to ALHIV in schools in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania. 

Various forms of support for ALHIV in schools were identified. Schools had designated health teachers/matrons/ patrons responsible for addressing health-related issues, including those affecting ALHIV. Assistance for clinic visits and medication adherence was readily available. Peer clubs were established to combat stigma and discrimination while providing additional support. Nevertheless, challenges such as staff members’ limited knowledge and skills, reluctance to disclose, inadequate nutritional support, and insufficient backing from regional and district administrators persist.

The study also pinpointed areas for enhancement, such as capacity building for teachers and staff, bolstering support for disclosure, offering nutritious dietary options, reinforcing peer clubs, and fostering collaboration between the education and health sectors. These findings can inform the development of comprehensive interventions to support ALHIV in school settings better, ultimately advancing their well-being and academic achievements. 

The report outlines the progress and achievements in the triple elimination of vertical transmission of HIV, syphilis, and hepatitis B in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) over the last two decades. The data mentorship programme aims to strengthen national health management information systems, improve data quality, and build the analytical skills of government staff working towards elimination. It employs a unique partnership model with the private sector, academia, and government officials, focusing on capacity building through virtual and in-person mentoring, online learning platforms, and workshops. The programme has shown early successes, with mentees from various countries implementing operational plans to improve data quality and analysis in their respective countries.

Empowered mentees are taking up leadership roles that directly support national programmes and 'Path to Elimination' validation processes. The geographical expansion of the programme and the continuous exposure of mentees to technical learning opportunities will further enhance each country’s preparedness towards the 'Path to Elimination' and validation. The design, approach and delivery of this programme can be used as a blueprint for building national and regional capacity, skills building, and mentorship. While this particular data mentorship programme focuses on vertical transmission and the Path to Elimination, the principles of data quality, data sources, collection and reporting, data visualisations, and data use remain consistent across healthcare programmes and can be applied more broadly to build data use capacity in maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and sexual and reproductive health.

Despite global progress in HIV treatment for children, the gap between adult and paediatric treatment coverage continues to widen. This gap is driven primarily by barriers to HIV diagnosis in children, but in the past decade those barriers have shifted.

Scaling-up HIV case-finding efforts for children presents several challenges, including limited access to testing services, lack of provider preparedness to offer testing to children, stigma and discrimination, policy barriers related to age of consent, and inadequate health systems. The aim of this technical brief is to offer countries a guide to address these challenges and enhance HIV case-finding for children to improve testing coverage for children at risk for HIV. This technical brief focuses primarily on how programmes can identify those children who may have missed out on EID testing, who were never tested after breastfeeding or whose mothers were not enrolled in care.

Ujana Salama leverages impacts of the PSSN with complementary interventions, including training and linkages to services.The aim of these interventions is to facilitate safe, healthy and productive transitions to adulthood while strengthening local government capacity and services related to adolescent health, livelihoods and social protection.

Provides findings from the impact evaluation of Ujana Salama. This impact evaluation is a 26-month, mixed-methods study aimed at providing evidence on the potential for an additional plus component targeted to youth layered on top of a government cash transfer programme to improve youths’ future economic opportunities and facilitate safe transitions to adulthood.

Tanzania’s pilot Cash Plus Model on Youth Well-being and Safe, Healthy Transitions, or “Ujana Salama” (‘Safe Youth’ in Swahili), aims to improve the lives of young people in rural areas.These adolescents are extremely poor and face multiple health and economic risks.

A model for safe transition to a healthy and productive adulthood.

A Model for Safe Transitions to a Healthy and Productive Adulthood

For adolescent boys and girls, transitioning to adulthood means facing significant social, health and economic risks. These include a lack of economic opportunities, early marriage and pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections including HIV, violence, abuse and exploitation. To support a safe, healthy and productive passage to adulthood, the Tanzania Social Action Fund (TASAF), the Tanzania Commission for AIDS (TACAIDS), UNICEF and other key stakeholders have developed, implemented and evaluated an intervention where social protection and economic empowerment interventions are combined with sexual and reproductive health education and services as part of the Tanzanian government’s cash transfer programme, the Productive Social Safety Net (PSSN).

The resources available include a project brief with a summary of the programme components and impact evaluation, as well as research briefs and reports from the baseline, midline and third wave of data collection.