Evaluation of the integrated projects in Tanzania and Zambia, March 12-19, 1988
Integration 1989(19): 4-33
1989
ISSN/ISBN: 0916-0582 PMID: 12282131 Document Number: 362204
An assessment was made of Integrated Projects (IP) in Zambia and Tanzania, projects which aimed to integrate family planning services with other health and welfare activities. The assessment team, composed of representatives of the international agencies involved in IP, spent a week in each country. They found that despite important differences between the two projects, a body of experience had been built up which justified future support and which could be relevant to other family planning project development in Africa. Although the projects in Zambia and Tanzania were initiated at approximately the same time (1983-84), in similar socioeconomic conditions, they started from different points. In Zambia the subject of family planning had virtually been taboo before 1983: nurses had been trained in family planning but not permitted to practise on their own; government family planning policies and services were limited. The project itself, despite good work by the Flying Doctor Service, went through an unsettled early stage and became heavily dependent on one member of the service. By 1988 many of the early problems had been resolved and the project had been strengthened. In Tanzania, the IP was launched in the context of a well-established family planning association, and long standing government programme. It rapidly achieved understanding among senior officials of the integrated approach to family planning. Despite numerous logistical difficulties, project activities significantly raised the level of contraceptive prevalence in the project areas and the process of integration in the community was well demonstrated. The Tanzania experience showed that parasite control can be an effective integration partner for family planning.