Community Health Funds: Extension of the National Health Insurance Fund of Tanzania

The National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) was established in 2001, with the basic objective of providing health insurance to civil servants. Since then, the NHIF has increased coverage by extending its membership to private, informal and semi-formal sectors. In 2009, the NHIF was mandated by the Government to manage the Community Health Funds (CHF) which were initially managed by the local authorities. The main objective of being given this task was to bring about the growth of the CHF scheme in terms of coverage, number of members and quality of health services accessible to its beneficiaries.

In fulfilling this task, the NHIF used several innovative approaches and strategies, including the preparation of the three year implementation plan, training its employees, and conducting several sensitization and motivation campaigns. Also the NHIF has taken several steps to conduct monitoring and evaluation on matters pertaining to the scheme.
Through the management of the CHF, the NHIF has learnt several practical lessons about the CHF and social insurance schemes in general. The application of these lessons can be extended to similar schemes in the sub-Saharan region.