Strengthen the capacity of the public health system to deliver proven interventions that reduce infant and child mortality rates.

TAIS is USAID/Timor-Leste’s largest bilateral investment in health. The TAIS project, which began in 2005, has provided technical support to the Ministry of Health to extend effective newborn, child health and nutrition interventions throughout the country.  TAIS II contributed to substantial improvement on key maternal and child health.

TAIS II gave better access to ministry and district level programming in order to integrate better practices for both management improvements and quality of care improvements.  Compared with the 2003 Timor-Leste Demographic and Health Survey (TL-DHS), the 2009-2010 TL-DHS shows the DPT3 coverage increased from 50% to 67%; the infant mortality rate was reduced from 60/1,000 live births to 44; and the under-5 mortality rate was reduced from 83/1,000 live births to 64/1,000.