THE BENJAMIN WILLIAM MKAPA HIV/AIDS FOUNDATION

On behalf of the Board of Trustees, Management and Staff of the Benjamin William Mkapa HIV/AIDS Foundation, I take this opportunity to wish you a Happy New Year 2012!

I hereby acknowledge the great contribution and collaboration rendered by our partners and stakeholders in realizing our vision and mission that aim in bringing HOPE to rural community of Tanzania.

As we end year 2011, the Foundation has recorded high level of programme performance through its innovations of enhancing health services especially in rural areas, through health systems strengthening, boosting service delivery and improvement of health policies and guidelines.  As we contribute in addressing Health workforce challenges within the country, BMAF was able to support the Government of Tanzania on development of various national guidelines on Human resource for Health as well as train, coach and mentor more than 700 managers on Human Resources Management. We further continued recruiting innovatively more than 200 health professionals, who are currently serving 35 rural districts to improve HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria and other related services. Given the limited production of health workers graduating from training institutions due to limited tutors capacity, BMAF contributed in hiring 100 tutors to work in over 40 health training institutions. This is expected to increase outputs of qualified health professionals in the coming years. All these interventions have culminated to minimizing the shortage/gap of health workforce within our country, and enhancing good practises in recruitment, retention and improving productivity of health workers.

Realising the limited access to maternal and newborn health services, BMAF strengthened the Health centre in Iramba district-Singida, by constructing and equipping the operating theatre. This is aimed to improve provision of Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric Care.

Nevertheless, the positive results gained and lessons learnt from our parent programme - Mkapa Fellows Programme, has allowed the scale up of the approach to the Regional Hospitals through recruitment of Fellows who are Laboratory professionals, to serve the Regional Hospitals.

Whilst we register the above programme milestones, concurrently we continued strengthening BMAF’s institutional systems, structure, policies and processes in-order to achieve quality programme results, becoming self sustainable and meeting the expectation of our clients.

Last year BMAF realised its target of increasing partners and projects that contributed to increased funding by more than 100%. Restructuring of our institution was a key result area for year 2011, leading to appointment and inauguration of new Board of Trustees and the Management and staff capacity growing from sixteen (16) to forty one (41) staff. Moreover we opened field offices in Mtwara, Iringa and Mwanza and the Head Office shifted to a more conducive office to accommodate the increased staff. Simultaneously, revision of our Strategic Plan and capacity assessment of BMAF was successfully carried in year 2011, through involvement of staff and key stakeholders, that ultimately contributed positively to the above highlighted re-structuring and good performance.

It is humbly recognised that all the above were made possible through the effective oversight and guidance provided by the Board to the BMAF team, as well as the endless commitment and hard work by the entire BMAF Management and staff. Thank you all!

Nevertheless, we are grateful to all our supporters including the community, for their mutual and trusted partnership with BMAF. This appreciation is extended to the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania, Clinton Health Access Initiative, Royal Norwegian Government, World Health Organization, USAID and Intrahealth International. Others are Global Fund to fight against AIDS,TB and Malaria, World Lung Foundation, Abbott Fund Tanzania and THRP Coalition Partners including Management Science for Health and Christian Social Service Commission to mention a few.

In all our successes, we are indebted to the founder of the organization, the Former President of the United Republic of Tanzania, H.E. Benjamin William Mkapa who had a vision that was well translated into actions with the entire BMAF team and its partners. We further acknowledge the trust and support rendered by the Former President of the United States of America, President William Jefferson Clinton who was behind the establishment of the Foundation and our first programme- Mkapa Fellows Programme.

We continue welcoming additional partners as we accelerate to implement our Strategic Plan that aims at improving Health Systems and HIV & AIDS.

For the year 2012, the Foundation will embark on localising resource mobilisation for the Mkapa Fellows Programme extension to reach 15 districts with aim of enhancing HIV/AIDS including Prevention of Mothers and Children; Maternal Newborn Health and Health administration. In addition, we shall continue expanding our initiatives country wide, on improving health workforce situation and health service delivery. Internally our institution will continue strengthening its technical capacity which is aligned to its vision of becoming the centre of excellence.

I wish you once again a happy and healthier New Year, and looking forward serving you!