BMC International Health and Human Rights BioMed Central Research article Open Access The decentralisation-centralisation dilemma: recruitment and distribution of health workers in remote districts of Tanzania Michael A Munga*1,2, Nils Gunnar Songstad1, Astrid Blystad3,1 and Ottar Mæstad4 Address: 1Centre for International Health, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway, 2Department of Health Systems and Policy Research, National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 3Department of Public Health and Primary Health Care (ISF), University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway and 4Chr Michelsen Institute, Bergen, Norway Email: Michael A Munga* -
[email protected]; Nils Gunnar Songstad -
[email protected]; Astrid Blystad -
[email protected]; Ottar Mæstad -
[email protected] * Corresponding author Published: 30 April 2009 Received: 8 September 2008 Accepted: 30 April 2009 BMC International Health and Human Rights 2009, 9:9 doi:10.1186/1472-698X-9-9 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-698X/9/9 © 2009 Munga et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: The implementation of decentralisation reforms in the health sector of Tanzania started in the 1980s. These reforms were intended to relinquish substantial powers and resources to districts to improve the development of the health sector. Little is known about the impact of decentralisation on recruitment and distribution of health workers at the district level.