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Substance use is among the risk factors associated with both HIV/AIDS and non communicable diseases (NCDs). The aim of this paper is to describe the development of the medication assisted therapy (MAT) in the treatment of substance use disorders and opportunities for further interventions in Tanzania.

A review of MAT pilot project documentation, existing published and grey literature on substance misuse in Tanzania was used to describe the scope of this paper. MAT as a program focuses on the treatment of opiod dependent individuals using methadone in a national hospital in Tanzania. It is delivered by a team of trained interprofessionals coordinating with community partners.

The findings indicate an uptake of pharmacotherapy in the treatment of substance use disorders as an adjunct to traditional counseling approaches in low resource settings. Program acceptability and reach within a short period of time by the opiod dependent individuals is shown.

National buy‐in is critical for developments of new interventions. Given adequate resources, it is feasible to integrate MAT for the treatment of substance use disorders within health care systems in poor resource settings. To ensure the success of the program, sustainable efforts and scaling up to include alcohol and tobacco dependence treatment is crucial. The local capacity building is required including a need for designing appropriate policies to address alcohol and tobacco use in Tanzania.

The intervention is the only one in sub‐Saharan Africa. MAT may serve as a practice model for other countries in the region.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of women in the small island economy by focussing on the education sector and labour market access. First, we analyse the educational path of women in Mauritius and second we examine the labour market opportunities available to them. We link the two sectors by adopting a gender perspective. Third, we investigate whether the same opportunities are made available to both men and women and whether or not there exist a gender gap in economic participation in the country.

The author used data from the World Bank Development Indicators (2012) for a comparative analysis of the gender situation in Mauritius relative to other African countries. Gender statistics were also made available from the statistical office: statistics, Mauritius. The Global Gender Gap Report (2012) and the SADC Gender Protocol Barometer 2012 were used as secondary data.

The analysis reveals that though girls’ outperform boys at all education levels, starting from primary, secondary and tertiary level, their access to job opportunities are reduced. Female unemployment rate is higher than that of male unemployment and even for those women who manage to enter the labour market, they remain in the low-occupation jobs. This puzzling relationship between good educational performance and female unemployment or low-occupation may first be explained by the wrong choice of subjects at secondary and tertiary levels. Mauritian women are more likely to obtain a degree in education and humanities which are the traditional areas rather than moving to the non-traditional spheres of science and engineering. Hence, not only is it difficult for them to penetrate the labour market which is already saturated in these traditional disciplines but jobs in these fields may not be in the high wage range. Consequently, these subject choices have repercussions for the occupations they choose and the wages they earn. Significant and persistent gaps remain in the fields of study that women and men choose as part of their formal education. These gaps translate henceforth into gender differences in employment and ultimately into differences in productivity and earnings.

No study has focused on the puzzling link between good education performance of girls and their inability to access the labour market in Mauritius.