Blog Archive
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Mar 16, 2010
Scaling Up Family Planning and Maternal and Child Health Best Practices
I just returned from Bangkok, Thailand where over 400 professionals representing 13 countries in the Asia and Middle East Region came together to wrestle with the complex issue of scaling up family planning and maternal and child health best practices. The USAID Extending Services Project organized this week-long meeting to galvanize country-led efforts to identify, plan for and put in place evidenced-based, cost-effective practices that can greatly reduce maternal, infant and child mortality. I was repeatedly struck by the impressive results being achieved throughout the region, and by the incredible enthusiasm, commitment and courage voiced by our country colleagues – whether it was the Director of the Tamil Nadu, India National Rural Health Mission describing how their government is investing in quality emergency obstetric services; the Deputy Minister of Health of Yemen explaining how they have greatly increased coverage of post-partum family planning; or the Director General for Health Services of the Ministry of Health of Nepal sharing their experience in supporting over 48,000 community health workers who offer key maternal and child health interventions that have led to increased child survival rates countrywide.
These and other sessions throughout the week articulated the key factors for success as well as the challenges inherent in scaling up evidence-based programs. Not surprising, a major barrier to scaling up quality services for nearly all countries relates to the health workforce. The issues vary, from insufficient numbers of skilled health workers to ensuring that community-based health workers are well-trained, supervised, motivated and on the job. I had the opportunity to present task-shifting as one operational strategy for addressing shortages of skilled workers as part of a broader health systems strengthening panel. One comment from the audience during that panel summed up nicely the broader health systems issues we face in global health today: “Too often we set unrealistically high targets and demand rapid results that require bypassing the system and reducing our ability to have sustainable impact. We need to prioritize investments into interventions that we know work, building on and reinforcing the existing systems.”
—Rebecca Kohler
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Mar 8, 2010
Salute to Women Health Workers
I salute the Women of the world today on the occasion of International Women’s Day 2010. As we mark the day, I cannot resist to make reference to Dr. Mahmoud F. Fathalla, a renowned Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, who eloquently stated that:
“…Maternal deaths in developing countries are often the ultimate tragic outcome of the cumulative denial of women's human rights. Women are not dying because of untreatable diseases. They are dying because societies have yet to make the decision that their lives are worth saving...”
A food for thought as we "celebrate."
SALUTE to Women Health Workers!
—Uche Ekenna, IntraHealth Senior Program Manager
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Mar 8, 2010
Gender Equality at IntraHealth on International Women's Day
IntraHealth is committed to promoting gender equality as an integral part of development, recognizing that if gender-based disparities and inequalities are not addressed in human resources development and health service delivery, they may undermine the achievement of health program, service and development objectives. Gender differences and inequalities are embedded in structural inequalities that translate into unequal opportunities for education, economic development, access to health care and ultimately, unequal access to good health based on gender. IntraHealth works with partners, clients, state institutions, policy makers and civil society to develop appropriate strategies to eliminate gender-based discrimination, gender-based violence and gender-based barriers to service access, use and quality. IntraHealth’s gender strategy, which we adapt to local needs and opportunities, has three major components:
- End discrimination and promote equal opportunity and treatment in employment, training and education in human resources (HR) projects to address women’s often more vulnerable position in the labor market.
- Respond to gender-based violence. IntraHealth improves the capacity of the health system to respond to clients who live with violence through improved diagnosis, risk assessment and counseling, safety planning, referral and community outreach.
- Strengthen service delivery and systems linkages to address socio-economic determinants of health. This strategic component aims to strengthen the health system’s response to the socioeconomic determinants of health, such as poverty, gender inequality and educational status, and to mitigate the resulting gender barriers to health service access and use.
Our HIV/AIDS Program Strategy incorporates women’s socioeconomic empowerment as a prevention and impact mitigation strategy and sensitizes service managers and providers to respond to the possibility of gender-based violence as a result of positive serostatus disclosure.
In Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania we promote non-discrimination and equal opportunity and treatment in education, training and employment by removing gender barriers to workforce participation to achieve in the fullest possible pool of formal and nonformal workers. This includes:
- Protecting workers from violence and discrimination
- Ensuring equal access to education and training, employment, promotion, remuneration
- Facilitating choice in health profession and occupation
- Facilitating workforce entry and re-entry for women after pregnancy.
IntraHealth’s gender equality interventions include policy development, training, technical assistance, research, and workforce capacity building. IntraHealth has ongoing or completed gender activities in Armenia, Bangladesh, Burundi, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Rwanda, Senegal, and Yemen. New initiatives are planned for Namibia, Tanzania, and Zambia.
On the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, we are pleased to see the growth in commitment to gender equality in the workforce and in health service delivery yet we know there is a lot more work to be done. You can follow IntraHealth’s Gender Equality work here and here.
—Candy Newman, IntraHealth Senior Technical Advisor/Gender Equality
