2023 State of TB in SA Report shines spotlight on governance

TB remains a highly infectious illness and a leading cause of death worldwide. Ahead of World TB
Day, the TB Accountability Consortium has formally released the second State of
TB report, titled Tackling governance gaps to improve care.

The 2022 Global TB report estimated that over 300 000 new people acquired TB in 2021. Of these
between 174 – 181 000 people were diagnosed with TB, suggesting that over 120 000 people who
acquired TB were not initiated into lifesaving TB care. Communities’ involvement in shaping the TB
response at local district and provincial levels is essential to addressing this gap.

The second edition of the State of TB Report takes a more in depth look at the governance of TB programmes in South Africa, focussing on what is needed to bring about coherence in the implementation of TB programmes. The World Health Organisation defines governance as the need to ensure strategic policy frameworks exist and are combined with effective oversight, coalition-building, regulation, attention to system- design and accountability.

In line with this, TBAC will use USAID’s Governance in TB report as a benchmark for the evaluation of governance in the context of SA’s TB Recovery Plan.

The report has taken two approaches this time round: the first part of the
report conducted a governance evaluation of the National TB programme and the National TB Recovery Plan using global governance indicators conceptualised by USAID. The second portion is an evaluation of the progress towards the National TB goals enunciated in the National Strategic Plan and the National TB Recovery Plan. As part of the evaluation, there has been engagement with key stakeholders in the country’s TB response to understand some of the challenges that they face in this regard.

The report further highlights the significance of community health workers, who deal with afflicted
communities on the ground in most cases.

To read the full report, click here.