More than a Health Insurance? An exploration of health-related and non-health- related uses of the Improved Community Health Fund amongst micro-finance beneficiaries in Igota Village, Ulanga District, Tanzania

The Republic of Tanzania has an ambitious plan: until 2030, it wants its entire population to have access to Universal Health Care. The Improved Community Health Fund (ICHF) forms part of this undertaking. It is a Micro Health Insurance scheme designed for informally employed people living in rural parts of Tanzania. This MA thesis is based on four weeks of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the village of Igota in the Kilombero Valley, south-eastern Tanzania. This thesis uses Neema, a women’s group involved in microfinancing and community sensitization campaigns, as an entry point for gaining a more thorough understanding of how the endeavours to reach Universal Health Coverage in contemporary Tanzania are received on the grassroots level.
All members of Neema women’s group have purchased the ICHF. However, the Micro Health Insurance is only one of several resources Neema women resort to when facing health-related challenges. Thus, the enrolment into the ICHF is to be placed in the larger context of social health protection mechanisms. Apart from ICHF-membership, these social health protection mechanisms build on solid social relations or the access to loans from the women’s group.
This thesis also outlines in what ways the members of Neema make use of their collective membership in the ICHF for non-health-related purposes. This includes the advertisement of their women’s group amongst the village authorities by involving themselves in community sensitisation campaigns aimed at the promotion of the ICHF in different village communities.