Dissertation (MSc Public Health)
The problem of malnutrition still persists in Tanzania mainland. Tanzania is not the only country suffering from the problem of malnutrition, at least one form of malnutrition if not many is identified in every country across the world. Millions of under-fives die every year from malnutrition and those who manage to survive fail to reach their full potential when reaching adulthood due to undernutrition. Good nutrition governance is an important component in fighting against malnutrition. Good nutrition governance embraces multisectoral collaboration but the challenge remains on the government to build adequate commitment, collaboration among actors for nutrition as well as setting up capabilities to work on these commitments. This study assessed the level of commitment and capability among regions and councils to deliver nutrition services in Tanzania mainland.
A cross sectional study designed which involved a national survey where all councils and regions were involved was conducted in Tanzania mainland between June and July 2020. A total of 184 councils and 26 regions were invited to participate in a study and only 116 councils and 21 regions qualified to participate in this study. The same number of nutrition officers from these regions and councils responded to questions assessed nutrition officers. Quantitative data collection approach was used to collect quantitative data by the help of employed web based structured questionnaire.
Result showed that, 38.1% of regions had very high level of commitment while 9.5% of council were regarded to have very high level of commitment in Tanzania mainland. 4.8% of region had the least level of commitment to deliver nutrition services while 4.3% of councils had the lowest commitment level in Tanzania mainland. Level of commitment were grouped from first group which was considered to have higher level to fourth group among regions and to seventh group among councils with very lower commitment levels. About 81% of regions had capabilities to provide nutrition services while 46.6% of council had capability. Only 38.1% of regions and 49.1% councils were identified that they offer nutrition services in Tanzania mainland while the rest offer inadequately. The study also found the relationship between the level of commitment and provision of nutrition services in Tanzania mainland with the significance of 0.001 p- value.
The level of commitment of regions is seen to be very high compared to councils. Councils coming from rural area have low level of commitment to provide nutrition services than councils coming from urban area. Councils having low level of commitment provided less nutrition services compared to councils having higher level of commitment. Tanzania mainland still have inadequate capability to provide nutrition services to the people.