Saturday, May 16, 2015

Over Sh1bn saved as 66 children undergo heart surgery at MNH



Minister for Health and Social Welfare Dr Seif Rashid shakes hands with Cherish Chatama at Muhimbili National Hospital’s Cardiac Centre yesterday. The child underwent a successful heart surgery this week. Looking on is Cherish’s mother. 
Muhimbili National Hospital(MNH) saved about Sh1.3 billion this week by carrying out heart surgeries on 66 children born with heart defects instead of referring them abroad for treatment.
For the past one week, a team of surgeons from Saudi Arabia have been working with local experts at  the MNH to repair heart defects in children.
The joint project aims at cutting down expenses of seeking treatment in foreign countries, mostly India.
The MNH Senior Public Relations Officer, Mr Aminiel Algaesha, told The Citizen yesterday that the cost of operating on one child was estimated to be $10,000 that the government could have incurred to send them abroad.
For the past six years since open heart surgeries started at the MNH, 453 patients have undergone successful procedures and 105 of them were operated on in the past one year, according to statistics obtained from the hospital’s Cardiac Centre.
MNH Acting Director, Dr Hussein Kidanto said that new state-of-the art surgical equipment have been installed at the hospital’s Cardiac Unit to help treat most cases of heart diseases, but  the facility was grossly understaffed.
Dr Kidanto said that doctors from Israel, under the charity, ‘Save a Child’s Heart,’ will be in the country next month to carry out more heart surgeries on children.
He urged the public to make use of the collaboration between Tanzania and other countries in dealing with Non-Communicable Diseases.

Fishermen want government intervention to increase income.


Small-scale fishermen around Lake Victoria have raised concern over low fish prices set by fishing agents saying the government need to intervene to enable them raise their income.
 They claimed that lack of official agreement between them and fishing agents denies their rights whenever they are afflicted with sea calamities.  Omary Masomi, a fisherman at Mswahili Fishing Camp told The Guardian in the Region that while agents’ sells fish to fishing companies at between Sh6, 000 and Sh10,000 a kilo; small-scale fishermen are forced to sell to agents at as low as Sh300 a kilo. Masomi said the income obtained from fish sells can hardly support their families because sometimes they get very little catch that can hardly be sold at profit. He said fishermen teaming up in groups of four usually catch 100kg of fish on daily basis saying there is need for fishing agents to recognise their efforts by offering them better fish prices. “We need the government to fight for us and ensure we sell our fish to agents at profit and also ensure that we are empowered” he said. Mussa Paul, also a trader at the camp said they were still selling fish to agents at very low prices despite fish prices increase in the local market and world at large. At Mwaloni Fishing Camp, also located in the region, fishermen called upon the government to stop favouring big investors; instead they should solve harassment and low fish prices facing fishermen.  “Fishermen sometimes have their 10 mm sardine, fishnets confiscated by authorities in pretext that they are involved in illegal fishing. Fishermen were living in poverty despite being in the business for more than 10 years” Paul said. According to him, a number of authorities conducting illegal fishing campaigns lack the knowledge to differentiate various fish-nets depending on the size and type of fish. He said authorities have failed to contain illegal manufacturing of fishnets as well as importation. Asked for comment, the Officer-in-Charge, Fisheries and Management in Mwanza Zone, Lameck Mongo said they were no longer monitoring illegal entry of fishnets due to lack of funds for the exercise. He said there is need for small-scale fishermen to ensure they form groups to enable them speak with one voice and resolve their problems with fishing agents. “We need all communities living around water body areas to collaborate and fight illegal fishing, the government alone cannot manage,” he said.

By The Guardian -Correspondent
 

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

World Bank approves USD45m for small scale miners














The World Bank Group's Board of Executive Directors has approved a new US$45 million credit for Tanzania to improve the socioeconomic impact of large and small-scale mining.

A WB statement availed to the Guardian yesterday said the project will also help to increase private, local and foreign investment, explaining:
"This project shows the WB's commitment to support Tanzania's efforts to allocate mining resources equitably, especially to the poorest through a focus on artisanal and small-scale mining,"

The statement from Philippe Dongier, the World Country Director for Tanzania, said the additional financing will build on the success of the ongoing Sustainable Management of Mineral Resources Project (SMMRP).

This has strengthened the government capacity to manage the sector, improved the regulatory framework, expanded the country coverage by geological surveys and enhanced the social and environmental management framework for mining, the statement said.

 The new financing will support the goal of poverty-reduction in Tanzania through the development of a viable domestic mining industry.
It will also spread benefits to poor areas where artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) takes place, the statement said.

Tanzania's rich mineral endowment has long been considered a potential source of growth and poverty reduction. Encouraging the formalisation and sustainable development of ASM will help boost local entrepreneurship and employment in mining, the statement said.

In his comments Mamadou Barry, the World Bank Task Team Leader for the Project said: "Today's additional financing builds on these achievements and supports government efforts to transform mining activities into economic growth with benefits that can be shared by all Tanzanians, particularly in rural areas."

Scaling up the original project would help identify suitable geological areas for artisanal miners, train and establish demonstration centres for ASM to improve knowledge in faceting, carving, jewelry, and finally boost marketing as well as financial access.

The statement said the project will focus on technical, financial, organisational and environmental constraints of ASM. This will be through a partnership arrangement for enhancing co-operation between artisanal and industrial miners as well as the effective integration of corporate social responsibility functions of industrial mining companies into the budget planning processes of local government authorities.

 BY THE GUARDIAN REPORTER

NMB supports Hai flood victims

NATIONAL Microfinance Bank (NMB), a has donated different items worth 10m/- to flood victims in Hai in Kilimanjaro Region which left dozens of people homeless.
The flood follows heavy rain which has pounded the country last week and in Hai has left dozens of people without basic needs – food and shelter.
The items donated includes rice, beans, mattress and building materials such as cement which were directed to the affected families in the two wards of Weruweru and Masama Rundugai in Hai Constituency.
Handing over the donation to the Hai District Commissioner (DC), Anthony Mtaka, the NMB Northern Zone Manager, Vicky Bishubo said disaster recovery is important to the bank and has a special budget to support such victims.
“We partner with the government of this council together with the area Member of Parliament (MP) to console and give the victims a relief by giving them food and shelter,” said Ms Vicky.
Ms Vicky added that “This donation is part of the one per cent of the banks profit after tax (over 1.0bn/-) that we give out to communities through corporate social responsibility (CSR), through this set amount, NMB have been able to give a relief of its kind to communities.”
Mr Mtaka thanked NMB for the support calling other stakeholders of his district to follow the NMB way and help the flood victims.
“On behalf of the government, we appreciate the support you have given us, this will surely give a relief to those in need,” said Mr Mtaka insisting that NMB is the biggest shareholder on the development of the district.
Commenting on the donation, the Hai MP – Freeman Mbowe said the donation to the victim came at the right time when communities were in need of food and somewhere to sleep.
Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA) forecasted that heavy rainfall exceeding 50 millimeters in 24 hours should be expected from yesterday until May 25.

Thursday, May 7, 2015

On International Day, UN says more midwife training will help tackle maternity and child deaths




Nearly 800 women continue to die every day from complications of pregnancy and childbirth, the United Nations spotlighted as it marked the International Day of the Midwife with a call for greater investment to increase the number of midwives and enhance the quality and reach of their services.
Maternal deaths have dropped by nearly 50 per cent, down from an estimated 523,000 in 1990 to some 289,000 at latest count. And according to the UN, midwives who are educated and regulated to international standards can provide 87 per cent of the essential care needed by women and their newborns.
“As we approach the deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), we are proud of the progress made for Goal 5, to improve maternal health,” said Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).
“But while this progress is welcome, it is not enough,’ he added.
This Day – observed around the world on 05 May with the theme this year Midwives: For a better tomorrow –highlights gaps that need to be addressed in order to provide universal sexual and reproductive, maternal and newborn health care.
This year, in preparation for the post-2015 international development agenda, midwives are being recognized for their critical role in ensuring safe deliveries, promoting healthy birth spacing, and protecting the health and rights of women and girls.
However, a massive midwife shortage around the world exists and has been documented in the State of Midwifery 2014 report. That gap is particularly dangerous when it comes to countries in crisis.
“The need for strong health systems and sufficient health workers was recently highlighted by the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, where pregnant women struggled to find available health services to ensure safe delivery,” said Dr. Osotimehin.
UNFPA is expanding midwifery services to support resilient health systems in the affected countries. Today, it funds more than 250 midwifery schools with books, training equipment and trained faculty, and has helped train over 15,000 midwives globally. It also supports midwifery in more than 70 countries worldwide, and in 2014 helped launch Bachelor’s degree programmes in midwifery in Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Somalia and Zambia.
In the past four years, more than 35 countries have made national pledges to strengthen midwifery. Ethiopia pledged to quadruple the number of midwives from 2,050 to 8,635, and will achieve this target ahead of time. Bangladesh pledged to train an additional 3,000 midwives, and some 2,000 midwives are already undergoing training at 31 training centres. Haiti dispatched the first group of midwives last year from its new midwifery school built after the 2010 earthquake. And Afghanistan revived and strengthened community midwifery, which has helped reduce maternal death ratios by more than 80 per cent since 2002.
Midwives – and people with midwifery skills – are the main caregivers for women and their new-borns during pregnancy, labour, childbirth and in the post-delivery period. In addition to their work caring for women during and after childbirth, midwives provide a wide range of assistance, including advancing women’s and girls’ rights, care in humanitarian emergencies, training and supervision, and counselling services on family planning and reproductive health.

ILO-backed programme to give jobs to a million.

















The International Labour Organisation (ILO) in collaboration with Tanzania Foundation for Civil Society plans to create more than 800,000 new jobs to cut youth unemployment in East Africa.
 
The jobs will come through a strategic grant offered under the Youth to Youth Fund (Y2YF) programme to various youth groups, Ekanath Khatiwada, Regional Youth to Youth Coordinator said yesterday in Dar es Salaam.
 
The coordinator was speaking at a sideline of the ongoing national youth to youth fund learning event and policy advocacy forum organised by the foundation. It has brought together youth from Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.
 
He said ILO is funding innovative ideas, generated by both girls and boys across the country to start-up or improve their business projects.
 
Francis Kiwanga, Executive Director for the Foundation of Civil Society said the Y2YF programme has run for three years;  “at the foundation we offer grants ranging between 15m/- and 20m/- to implement various projects,” he said.
 
“We’re flexible depending on the context of the project,” he added.
 
He also said that as of yesterday, ILO has released at least 600m/- to implement the various wining projects,” he said.
 
“Over 13.4 per cent of youth in Tanzania have no jobs,” he noted “…we are optimistic that the new approach will help reduce mass unemployment in the country,” he went on to say.
 
Under the scheme, he said, the funded projects are mainly those that will potentially create more jobs, increase productivity and improve business management skills for small scale entrepreneurs.
 
Jealous Chirove, ILO Chief Technical Advisor lauded the Y2YF initiative saying it has resulted in quality jobs and business creation across the region.
 
According to him, 34 organisations received funding grantee and 5 more received scale-up support and together they have benefitted more than 2500 youth in Kenya, at least 5591 in Uganda and 1,600 in Tanzania.
 
Jamila Tosha, a coordinator for Bagamoyo Girls Education Association (BAGEA) one of the beneficiary organisations expressed gratitude saying the fund has helped them reach more unemployed youth in Bagamoyo.
 
She said at least 51 girls have benefited from various training they offer at Bagamoyo Girls Education Association and improved their monthly earnings to 150,000/- from 30,000/- per month.
 
Among other trainings, Jamila shared her testimony that after receiving funding from Y2YF, several girls who had dropped out of school and those who were victims of early or forced marriages, have all benefited and many have opened up their own businesses.
 
“As we speak some of our beneficiaries have recruited others in their businesses and their lives have changed,” she attested.
 
Everisto Peter of FASO in Kilimanjaro, another beneficiary, also testified as to the success achieved thanks to capacity building training from the project.
 
He said their organisation offers entrepreneurial skills, agro-business and market tips to small scale organisations and thanks to the support from the project, several youth have become self employed and employed others, he said. 

BY SYLIVESTER DOMASA

New report puts Tanzania on ‘list of shame’

A new report has listed Tanzania among seven “corrupt governments” in Africa that support elephant poaching.
Other countries on the list are Kenya, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Sudan, Gabon and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The report, Ivory’s Curse: The Militarization and Professionalisation of Poaching in Africa, released early this week accuse public officials in the named countries of condoning or arming criminals who kill elephants and rhinos for their tusks and horns, respectively.
The report is a joint effort by the conservation group Born Free USA and C4ADS, a non-profit organization that analyzes the drivers of conflict and insecurity.
It says organised crime, government corruption and militias are all linked to elephant poaching and the illegal ivory trade. Poachers in Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Sudan and Kenya it found out move across borders with near impunity.
Mr Adam Roberts, Born Free USA CEO, said: “For years, Born Free USA and other animal advocates have campaigned against the trade in elephant ivory, but on conservation and animal welfare concerns. And we wanted to find a little bit more detail about who was behind the ivory trade. It’s not just enough to say it’s criminal syndicates, nefarious profiteers. We wanted to know who is really behind it so that we can try and get governments around the world to do more to crackdown.”
Mr Roberts said Born Free needed some help in gathering that kind of information.
“That’s one of the reasons that we commissioned C4ADS to do the report for us. Because I think the breadth of our capabilities within the conservation community are pretty much limited to conservation. But having a defence analyst that looks at the militarism behind all of these poaching incidents gives them access to information that we wouldn’t otherwise have.”
The latest report follows the one released by Interpol early in the year that also named Tanzania as among the leading source of illegal ivory in the East African region last year while Kenya and Uganda have become favourite transit routes, according to the international security agency.
The Interpol report showed Tanzania’s elephant population plummeting in recent years and that in the largest Selous Game reserve which boasted the world second largest elephant population at 70,000 elephants in 2006 had an estimated 39,000 in in 2009 and currently stand at 13,084 elephants. The elephant population in Ruaha National Park has declined by 44 per cent since 2006 and now numbers approximately 20,090, saiad Interpol in their report that colloborate many other findings of a similar nature.
Ivory’s Curse: The Militarization and Professionalization of Poaching in Africa found unique problems in each country -- though many of them were marked by conflict. It says, in Sudan, government-allied militias fund their operations by poaching elephants outside North Sudan’s borders.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, state security forces provide rebels with weapons and support in exchange for ivory.

Sunday, May 3, 2015

80pc of ‘eastern arc’ forests lost

Tanzania has lost about 80 per cent of forests in its side of the Eastern Arc Mountains, according to a new report released by WWF, the world’s leading conservation organisation.
The report titled: ‘WWF Living Forests Report 2015—Saving Forests at Risk’ released on Tuesday says current estimates show that little more than 500,000 hectares of forests remain in the Eastern Arc Mountains. 
“The implication of losing such huge hectares of forests will be huge,” said Mr Geofrey Mwanjela, WWF Terrestrial Programme Coordinator for Coastal East Africa Global Initiative, when reached by phone yesterday.
“As the report points out, with only 500,000 hectares of forests remaining; the pressure from unsustainable agriculture, unsustainable timber harvesting and uncontrolled fires will continue to pose challenges to what’s remaining within Eastern Arc,” said Mr Mwanjela.
The Eastern Arc Mountains Endowment Fund (EAMCEF) Executive Director, Mr Francis Sabuni, admitted that deforestation was alarming.
However, he said EAMCEF was implementing a five-year (2011-2016) project dubbed, ‘Improving Conservation of the Eastern Arc Mountains Forests of Tanzania’ with funding from the Norwegian government.
Mr Sabuni was optimistic that the project would help to stop unsustainable harvesting of resources in the mountains.
The scheme is also supported by the government and its development partners, including the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility and the United Nations Development Programme, said Mr Sabuni.
“Most people living in surrounding rural areas depend heavily on subsistence agriculture and forests for their livelihoods. A growing population is also piling pressure on nature,” said the EAMCEF boss.
The report point out that the coastal forests of Tanzania and Kenya have been reduced to 10 per cent of their original area.