Where We Work > Africa > Mozambique

Mozambique

Mozambique has an extremely low density of physicians, nurses, and midwives. To increase access to basic health services, the Mozambique Ministry of Health requested assistance from the IntraHealth-led CapacityPlus project to provide technical and financial support for a national community health worker program. At the core of this program, the Ministry is revitalizing a community health worker cadre, called agentes polivalentes elementares (APEs), to deliver basic services to the most remote and marginalized communities. To guide the work, the Ministry established an APE Coordination Unit. CapacityPlus is helping the APE Coordination Unit roll the program out to the country’s districts by supporting the hiring of key staff, providing office space and equipment, and establishing operational procedures and policies. CapacityPlus is also coordinating working groups for developing training materials; a monitoring system to track key indicators of progress; tools for supervision, including easy-to-use supervisor checklists; norms and systems for monetary APE subsidies; and standardized Work Kits (including bicycles) and Medicine Kits.

The first group of APEs received a four-month training in 2010 in eight initial districts. CapacityPlus is working with USAID’s Health Systems 20/20 to design a performance-based incentives plan for program coordinators who are working hard to expand the APE Program. In addition, CapacityPlus is working with the Ministry’s National Institute of Health to design a baseline survey to measure program impact. The Ministry’s initiative to revitalize the APE Program is informed by an operational plan developed by the IntraHealth-led Capacity Project in 2008–2009 that presented possible scenarios and a recommendation for the best scenario for restarting, consolidating, and maintaining the program.

Current Projects:

Past Projects: