Global Fund OVC Programs

Civil Society, Government and Citizens Banding Together to Support Most Vulnerable Children

The Global Fund has proven to be a potent weapon in the fight against HIV/AIDS and reducing the impact made by the pandemic. In 2005, the Global Fund had approved $58m to implement a programme to support the Tanzania National Costed Plan of Action (NCPA) for Most Vulnerable Children. The NCPA calls for citizens to organize themselves at the local level to form MVC Committees (MVCC). These committees, trained by the Department of Social Welfare, work in collaboration with civil society organizations (CSOs) to identify the most vulnerable children in their communities and provide them with needed services.

Pact Tanzania serves as Principal Recipient (PR) for this program awarded to Tanzania by the Global Fund under Round 4. This five year program is scheduled to end in June 2010 and targets 300,000 children in 24 districts. As PR, Pact, together with the Lead Sub-recipients (LSRs), Care and Save the Children, manage all of the funds for services and provides capacity building to the more than 40 CSOs and Faith Based Organizations (FBOs) receiving grants. The grantees work with the Department of Social Welfare and MVCCs to identify the children and then provide material and other support to children and their families in the areas of education, health care, shelter, care and protection, food and nutrition and psychosocial support.

The approach of using MVCCs to identify the recipients of support and monitor the service provision has proven to be effective way of reaching and sustaining response to most vulnerable children. It is the responsibility of the community, with support of the Department of Social Welfare, to provide the information on the children to the CSOs to bring in donor support.

Pact in collaboration with LSRs provide grants management support and capacity building in the areas of monitoring and evaluation, financial management, volunteer management, caretaking skills, and quality standards for service provision to the CSOs, FBOs as well as MVCC members. This emphasis on strengthening the systems, structures and various actors promotes a more sustainable and effective systems of support to children needing assistance. MVCCs are trained and encouraged to develop workplans relating to the MVC situation in their community. These plans are presented to local government authorities, through district councils for inclusion in future budgets and implementation plans. Local government is just now beginning to integrate MVC needs and rights in the district development plans and allocate budgetary support to them as the NCPA becomes better understood.

The MVCC members in many communities have been instrumental in ensuring there is continuous support to the children by facilitating detailed assessments of children’s needs, mobilizing community involvement, undertaking regular visit to the children receiving the support, forming children clubs for provision of psychosocial support and continuing to monitor the situations faced by the children at the household level. As a result of the emphasis on capacity development, Pact Tanzania is now achieving real progress in reaching children through services provision. The programme also is strengthening systems at the national and district level for government, CSOs, FBOs and MVCC to implement the NCPA.

The HIV /AIDS pandemic have increased significantly the number of orphans in Tanzania. Current estimates are 2.4 m Orphans in Tanzania. An estimated 10-12% of Tanzanian children are considered vulnerable with poor or minimal access to care, protection, education, health care, nutrition and shelter. The majority face death or long-term sickness of parents and guardians, distress, bereavement and abandonment, hunger and poor nutrition, vulnerability to HIV / AIDS, poverty, rights violations and exclusion from education As of September 2008, the programme has reached 185,528 toward the goal of reaching 300,000.

The increasing numbers of most vulnerable in the country (It is estimated that Tanzania will have 4m orphans by 2010) due to different factors such as poverty and HIV/AIDS pose a great challenge to the programme and the country. Today’s vulnerable children are potentially tomorrow’s adults with HIV the number of MVC increasing rapidly in the years to come. Strategies need to be developed at the district and community levels to address this new challenge. With the combined efforts of the public sector, civil society and organized citizen groups, the challenge of helping and reducing the number of vulnerable children of Tanzania can be achieved.