PSI

PSI/Tanzania: Healthy Lives. Measureable Results.

Population Services International (PSI)/Tanzania is a not-for-profit Tanzanian trust which has been working to improve the health of Tanzanians since 1993. We use Social Marketing to engage private sector resources and use private sector techniques to encourage healthy behaviour, and make markets work for the poor.
We are affiliated with PSI, an international social marketing organization working in over 60 countries, and based in Washington DC.

Our Vision:

A Tanzania where people are empowered to lead healthy lives.

Our Mission:

Through sustainable and effective collaboration, to measurably improve the health of vulnerable people in Tanzania by promoting healthy behaviours and delivering quality affordable products and services.

The following core values reflect what is truly important to us as an organization, and underpin our culture. We strive to be:

• Results Oriented: committed to maximizing health impact in all our program areas with the optimal use of resources
Innovative: in designing, implementing and measuring our interventions
• Collaborative: strengthening partnerships to improve the health of Tanzanians
• Effective: ensuring timely delivery of affordable, quality health products and services to the community
  
  

PSI/Tanzania currently works in four of the Government of Tanzania’s priority intervention areas of HIV malaria, reproductive health and diarrheal disease. We are committed to supporting the government’s stated goals:

• To reduce the rate and number of new HIV infections by 25% by 2012
To reduce maternal mortality by two thirds and to increase the contraceptive prevalence rate to 60% by 2015.
• By 2013, 80% of pregnant women and children under five years of age are sleeping under ITNs in all districts, and 90% of households own at least one ITN
• To increase access to clean and safe water, and reduce child mortality from neglected diseases such as diarrhoea
  

PSI/Tanzania’s support to these goals in turn will contribute to Tanzania achieving at least three millennium development goals (Goal 4: to reduce child mortality, Goal 5: to reduce maternal mortality, and Goal 6 to combat malaria and HIV).

Our Donors

Our work in Tanzania is supported by the Governments of Tanzania, Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, and Ireland, and by the Global Fund against Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, UNICEF, a US based private foundation, and PSI.

Our approach – evidence based social marketing

PSI/Tanzania uses social marketing techniques to leverage the power of the commercial sector to ensure essential health products are made available to vulnerable populations across the country on a consistent and reliable basis.

Just as mobile phone companies in Tanzania are currently demonstrating, significant numbers of Tanzanians, in rural and urban areas, are ready to pay for services that offer value. Socially marketed products are priced to create a sense of value in the mind of target groups, but are made affordable because they are subsidized by donors. This charge also enables traders to earn small margins that encourage them to stock these essential products - for example, as a result of this collaboration, PSI/Tanzania estimates that there are over 100,000 outlets selling condoms across Tanzania. All income earned through the sale of these products is reinvested in programmes.

PSI/Tanzania is committed to making programmatic decisions based on internal and external evidence to maximize the health impact of its interventions. Programme teams use a range of qualitative and quantitative research methods to measure the impact and effectiveness of their interventions on a regular basis, to evaluate field staff performance, and to inform management as well as external stakeholders of progress.
PSI/Tanzania conducts nationally representative household surveys, (known as ‘TRaC’ surveys) on HIV, malaria, reproductive health and diarrheal disease prevention every two years. All programmes will have surveys conducted in 2010. PSI/Tanzania uses nationally representative, annual distribution (or ‘MAP’) surveys to measure the availability of socially marketed products in regular retail outlets, and in the case of condoms, ‘high risk’ outlets such as bars, nightclubs and guesthouses.

In 2008 PSI/Tanzania introduced a new more structured qualitative research methodology (known as ‘FoQus’) that develops rich data about our target audience, including key determinants of behaviour. This methodology is being used to understand what influences use of contraceptive methods, high risk behaviours around HIV, and in 2010 around the use of mosquito nets, household water treatment and hand washing.

Using technology for health improvements

PSI/Tanzania is innovating in the use of modern technologies including mobile phones, geographic positioning systems (GPS) and the internet to monitor and improve its activities in the field. PSI/Tanzania’s field teams report communications and distribution activities through a web-based system that is tracked through GPS, and mapped on Google Earth. PSI/Tanzania is also developing SMS based marketing and reporting systems for reproductive health services, and the PSI/Tanzania vehicle fleet is tracked through GPS fleet logging systems. Using pocket computers (PDAs), the PSI/Tanzania research teams are able to collect and disseminate data more quickly, more accurately, and more cost effectively than ever before.

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