Joint Bi-Annual HIV/AIDS Review, 2008
Blue Pearl Hotel, Ubungo Plaza
10-11 November 2008
Regions and Districts visited
 HIV/AIDS Fund team comprising of Government &
Development Partners visited 18 District Councils in
five Regions
 Rapid Assessment of District and Community
HIV/AIDS response team comprising of international
and local consultants visited 18 District Councils in 18
Regions
 This represents a coverage of 27% of the District
Councils of Tanzania in 20 of the 21 Regions of the
country.
Objectives of the field visits
Field visit 1
 The overall objective of field visit 1 was to examine the
use of the HIV/AIDS Fund with a particular focus on
the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) at
the council level. The team also looked at the use of
the TOMSHA for monitoring non health
interventions.
Objectives of field visits (cont’d)
Field visit 2
 The main objective of the assessment was to gather
information about community based experiences in
implementing HIV and AIDS activities. Furthermore,
the consultants reviewed the overall HIV/ AIDS
programming at council level. Their mandate
included the identification of gaps in the delivery of
interventions including the source of those gaps.
Key findings
 On Funding:
- a few districts have allocated their own funds to
HIV/AIDS
- There were inadequate funds to Community
Based Organizations dealing with HIV and AIDS
activities
- Several of the MTEFs showed that the majority of
the HIV/AIDS Fund was benefiting District
Officials
Key findings (cont’d)
 On Funding (cont’d)
- Both teams reported that most of the funds provided
for HIV/AIDS are for seminars and associated per
diems only and not for the targeted audiences. The
HIV/AIDS Fund team noted that in all the LGAs they
visited, almost all funding went to various training
programmes and very little to CBOs, NGOs;
furthermore, training programmes were comparatively
longer for Government Officials at district level than
the WMACs and VMACs;
Key findings (cont’d)
On Funding (cont’d)
- What has been reported as done has
not been implemented;
- There are some remarkable efforts and
outputs from NGOs and volunteers but
they were not getting enough
recognition and very little funding
Key findings (cont’d)
On Funding (cont’d)
- There is a recognized need of the
importance of allocating funding for
HIV/AIDS interventions at the local
level;
Key findings (cont’d)
 On Reporting:
 The LGAs provides timely performance quarterly
expenditure reporting to PMO-RALG and Ministry of
Finance and Planning; however, TACAIDS has been
unable to track the performance expenditure reporting;
 On Monitoring and Evaluation:
 Many people received TOMSHA training;
 Some NGOs reported that they use the TOMSHA forms
and that after completing the form they submitted them
to the districts who in turn forwarded them to TACAIDS
Key findings (cont’d)
 On Monitoring and Evaluation (cont’d)
 The districts understand that they must submit the forms to
TACAIDS without analyzing them. None of the districts
received feedback after the forms had been sent to TACAIDS;
 Transport is a serious limitation for both Regions and
Districts to carry out HIV/AIDS field visits. However, what
was found out during the field visits was that even where
there was transport for other programmes, sharing of such
resources appeared to be a problem
 At this stage there is no routine regular reporting as the
TOMSHA is not fully operational and the only way to get
annual performance reports is through field visits
Key findings (cont’d)
 On Coordination:
 In many districts there appears to be good
collaboration between the Districts AIDS
Control Coordinators and the Council
HIV/AIDS Coordinators. However, in some
districts the role of the CHACs has been
marginalized and decisions about the use of the
HIV Fund are made by others. In those districts
it was difficult to track the use of funds.
A few Prioritized Recommendations
 There are many recommendations from both reviews
but we deem the following will be prioritized for this
and the next fiscal year:
 Given that the TOMSHA will take time to be fully
operational, TACAIDS will continue to do regular field
visits. Each year at least one of the field visits will focus
on funding flows and performance at the district level.
This latter field visit should occur in August each year as
it justifies the release of future funds to the districts;
A few Prioritized Recommendations
 There are bottlenecks in receiving LGA performance
and quarterly expenditure HIV/AIDS reports. These
issues need to be urgently resolved. TACAIDS will
endeavor to find a solution by working closely with
PMO-RALG to obtain bi-annually LGA expenditure
reports.
A few Prioritized Recommendations
 There are many comments made in both reports about
the TOMSHA. More than a thousand people have been
trained on the use of TOMSHA. Many NGOs have
indicated that they have forwarded the forms to the
districts who in turn submit them to TACAIDS. An
internal stock taking of the quality of information of
these forms need to be conducted (i.e. how many of
these forms has TACAIDS received, by which
institution, in which districts, overall analysis, the
whole feedback mechanism, etc…)
A few Prioritized Recommendations
 Similarly, several comments were made about large
expenditures on training and associated costs mostly
benefiting district officials. Most reports appear to
frown on putting conditionalities to the LGAs,
however, the evidence from the HIV/AIDS fund for last
year’s MTEFs and this year’s MTEFs and from the rapid
assessment review indicates that the majority of the
funding appears to go to training and the payment of
allowances. Training requirements need to be well
thought out and justified..
Questions we need to ask ourselves
 Should we put conditionality to the LGAs on the
training expenditures?
 If some training expenditures are allowed, should an
amount be capped for districts training and districts
encouraged to use available training allocation for
WMACs, VMACs and CBOs?
 How do we do away with the training syndrome that
concentrates only at one level at the expense of lower
levels?