Community Participation In Decentralized Management Of Health Services In Tanzania: A Case Study Of Moshi Rural District

ABSTRACT

This work is about ‘Community Participation in Decentralized Management of Health Services in Tanzania: A Case Study of Moshi Rural District’. The issue of community participation in facility health budget planning has gained profound importance all over the world, particularly in resource-poor situations where governments have often failed to provide adequate public-sector services for their community members. The aim of this dissertation was to provide the experience of implementing community participation and the challenges of promoting it in the context Moshi Rural District. A sample size of 96 respondents was employed in this study. Semi-structured questionnaires were administered and analysis of policy and legislative documents was also undertaken. Quantitative data were computed to produce frequencies and cross tabulations,. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was used for management of data and analysis. In this study the theories pertaining to participatory theory was established to familiarize the reader with paradigms, frameworks and approaches in the field of community participation. The findings from the study reveal that community participation in the decentralized management of health services in Moshi Rural District requires supportive policies and laws, since there is limited participatory, none-transparent and none-answerable to the community members. The study recommends that, the community members should stand on themselves so as to supervise their health heed as of their own and the government should find appropriate ways of engaging the community members in the planning processes.