The Cost of Training Community Health Agent (CHA), a Study on Unit Cost Analysis in Tanzania

Kassimu E. Tani, Ifakara Health Institute (IHI)
Fatuma Manzi, Ifakara Health Institute (IHI)

Tanzania as other African countries faces shortage on health workforce. This culminated as a barrier to achieve MDG 4&5 and CONNECT project test the hypothesis that community health services can accelerate MDGs. Aim was to estimate costs associated with the training of CHA that could be used for scaling up the cadre. Data was collected through activity tracking and in-depth interview at CONNECT, Tanzania Training Centre for International Health, public clinical officer training centre and secondary schools. The results show that, the unit program training cost was $2489 USD of which meal was 40%, accommodation was 20% and training facilitation was 18%. The modeled unit scaling up cost will be $833 USD. Meal covers 50%, training fee 27%, field allowance 14%, accommodation 6% and medical insurance 3%. Given limited resources, training CHA is worthwhile using clinical training centre at regional/zonal; as it reduces cost by 66% compared to program model.