Linking with Mtwara, Tanzania: a personal view on skill sharing for sexual health.

©FFPRHC J Fam Plann Reprod Health Care 2007: 33(2) Background Mtwara, in the southernmost part of Tanzania, is a bustling but remote town, little known by tourists, in a stunningly beautiful part of the eastern coast and bordering on Mozambique. It suffers from the legacy of a failed groundnut scheme that was planned in the early 1950s and abandoned, and it has the feeling of a town waiting to happen. Adequate communication links with the rest of Tanzania were never established and the promised economic prosperity never arrived. This region had been identified as one where there may be gains from partnership development between a group of National Health Service (NHS)-based sexual and reproductive health professionals in London, UK, and those delivering sexual and reproductive health services in Tanzania. Hence, in December 2006 the authors made their first reconnaissance visit, funded by Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO), and embarked on the process of relationship building and identifying priority areas for action. Poverty is the major human development problem in Tanzania and, consequently, the main impediment to health improvement. It is estimated that approximately 51% of the population are living below the poverty line on less than US $1 a day and 30% of them are considered to be in absolute poverty.1