Sample Registration System (SRS) Planning Grant - Tanzania

The Sample Registration System (SRS) Planning project, led by Ifakara Health Institute and funded by the Gates Foundation, aims to establish a National Sample Registration System in Tanzania to improve the accuracy and completeness of mortality data. This project addresses existing limitations in Tanzania’s data collection systems, such as the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) and the Routine Health Information System (RHIS), both of which face challenges in coverage and completeness and often rely on irregular household surveys.

Developing a government-led SRS plan
The project’s primary objective is to develop a government-owned and -led plan for a National SRS that integrates with CRVS, ensuring it is well-grounded and cost-effective. This system would enable continuous, representative data collection on vital statistics, including births and deaths, and provide timely information crucial for decision-making in health systems, particularly in low- and middle-income countries with a high burden of preventable diseases. 

Tanzania's data collection systems face challenges in providing comprehensive and timely data, making this project a potential interim solution by collecting demographic information through representative samples. 

Key activities and implementation strategy
Key activities include evaluating current mortality data sources in Tanzania, designing the SRS platform to generate vital statistics data, developing a comprehensive 4-year SRS implementation plan, and identifying partners and funders to support future implementation. Additionally, the project will engage local expertise to understand the implementation context better and devise a strategy for utilizing the SRS data to inform public health decision-making by local stakeholders.

Deliverables and expected outcomes
Deliverables will consist of a situation assessment report, a national SRS design proposal, a costed strategic action plan, and stakeholder presentations of this action plan, including to the Gates Foundation.

The team behind the project 
The project team includes experts from Ifakara, led by Principal Investigator Dr. Honorati Masanja and Project Leader Sigilbert Mrema, as well as members from the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Registration, Insolvency, and Trusteeship Agency (RITA). 

Drawing on Ifakara’s successful experiences with similar projects in Ifakara, Rufiji, and Savvy, the SRS aims to deliver reliable district-level statistics. The implementation period is scheduled from October 2024 to September 2025.

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