Malawi
Over 99 percent of all maternal deaths occur in developing countries and half of these take place in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2005, Malawi had one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the world with 1,100 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. The neonatal mortality rate was equally poor with 26 newborns dying per 1,000 births in 2004. Since then, the government of Malawi has made significant advances in maternal and newborn health, being one of the first African countries to launch a Road Map’ to specifically combat maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality.
WCF is helping to achieve the objectives of the Road Map, by strengthening the capacity of communities and individuals to improve maternal and neonatal health. WCF currently supports the implementation of two community based programmes in Malawi covering the districts of Lilongwe, Kasungu, Salima and Ntcheu.
MaiKhanda
MaiKhanda (meaning MotherBaby), a maternal and newborn health programme funded by the Health Foundation, is being implemented in partnership with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.
MaiKhanda supports both the community and the health system to play an active part in achieving better health and saving lives in three Districts (Lilongwe, Salima and Kasungu).
Women and Children First supported the project team to establish 729 women’s groups – the largest intervention of its kind in Africa. The groups identified the maternal and newborn healthcare problems they face in their communities and have worked to overcome these problems through low-cost solutions they devised and put into action themselves including. Examples of these actions were growing iron-rich vegetables, purchasing bicycle ambulances and obtaining bed-nets to prevent malaria. After they had implemented their solutions, the women’s groups evaluated what they had done and made decisions about what they wanted to do next. The majority of the groups will continue to meet and new groups will be set up in the coming months to extend the benefits to additional communities in the project areas.
Improving maternal and child health in Ntcheu
Women and Children First has worked in partnership with the Malawi Ministry of Health in the district of Ntcheu since 2005. In early 2010 we successfully concluded a programme with 86 women’s groups which laid the groundwork for a new three-year programme, funded by Comic Relief, which commenced in July 2010.
The new project will continue working in collaboration with the Ministry of Health to set up 144 women’s groups in Ntcheu district and cover a population of 72,000. We will build on previous activities and learning to improve maternal and child health in a number of ways. We will improve knowledge of maternal and child health issues and care practices in the community while also improving the quality of health services provided to pregnant women and children. In addition, we will implement a low cost data collection system to support health service planning and start up an informal referral service to ensure women and children get skilled care in a timely fashion.
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