Trust Freddy
Herald Correspondent
A HIGH-POWERED delegation from the United Republic of Tanzania is in the country on a week-long benchmarking tour to understudy Zimbabwe’s acclaimed domestic health financing model and operational strategies in managing HIV and AIDS.
The delegation, comprising members of the Board and Management of the AIDS Trust Fund in Tanzania, is led by board chairperson Mr Sabasaba Mwoshingi.
Speaking in Harare, Mr Mwoshingi, said his delegation chose Zimbabwe because the country has established itself as a continental leader in internal resource mobilisation.
“The reason we chose Zimbabwe is because of information we received that NAC is far ahead of us in terms of mobilising internal resources, and we thought as a board this would be an important visit to come and see how best Zimbabweans are doing it,” Mr Mwoshingi said.
He said with donor support from traditional Western partners and global funds waning across the Global South, domestic resource mobilisation has become an urgent priority for African nations to ensure continuity in treatment, care, and training programmes.
Officially welcoming the delegation, Health and Child Care Minister Dr Douglas Mombeshora said the national ownership, predictable domestic funding and robust accountability are essential pillars of a sustainable health response.
Dr Mombeshora described the National AIDS Trust Fund – popularly known as the AIDS Levy – as the bedrock of Zimbabwe’s national response, providing dedicated, predictable funding allocated via ministerial approval.
“Approximately 50 percent of the resources support treatment, care, and support, while 12 percent is directed towards prevention interventions. The balance supports programme implementation, logistics, monitoring and evaluation, coordination, and other enabling activities,” he said.
Dr Mombeshora said domestic resources are strategically deployed to plug vital service gaps while complementing Government Treasury allocations and support from development partners.
To ensure maximum impact and transparency, Dr Mombeshora added that funds are closely audited through National Health Accounts, National AIDS Spending Assessments, and the Government’s Integrated Results-Based Management (IRBM) framework.
National AIDS Council chief executive Dr Bernard Madzima described the influx of regional delegations on benchmarking missions as a humbling recognition of Zimbabwe’s leadership in health self-reliance.
“They have come on a peer learning visit where they are benchmarking their HIV programme compared to the Zimbabwe HIV programme,” Dr Madzima said.
“It’s basically an exchange of ideas, but they are more interested in learning about domestic resource funding.”
He noted that Zimbabwe pioneered the National AIDS Trust Fund more than two decades ago to ring-fence local funds for the response.
“Tanzania, they haven’t had that experience where they have domestic resources for the HIV programme,” Dr Madzima said.
“Our AIDS Levy supports about 30 percent of the programme. With the global shift in health funding, countries are now looking inward to generate resources from their own means.”
He added that the Tanzanian delegation – representing a nation of 70 million people with an HIV prevalence of 4,5 percent and 1,6 million people living with the virus – will engage Parliament, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Health and Child Care, and civil society groups such as the Zimbabwe National Network of People Living with HIV (ZNNP+), alongside site visits to community health programmes.
The visit comes barely a month after a Ugandan parliamentary delegation on HIV/AIDS and Related Matters visited the country and pledged to emulate Zimbabwe’s model to replicate it and close its own US$78 million HIV funding gap, noting that Harare has proven Africa can finance its own health response and curb reliance on international donors.
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