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Action for Development is partnering with One Day’s Wages to improve healthcare for women and children in Afghanistan by empowering women with quality midwifery training.

In Afghanistan, maternal and infant mortality rates are among the highest in the world. According to UNICEF, the infant mortality rate is 52 deaths per 1,000 live births and the maternal mortality rate is 638 deaths per 100,000 live births. By contrast, the infant mortality rate for the European region is 8 deaths per 1,000 live births (WHO). Only 51% of births in Afghanistan are attended by skilled health personnel. Long distances to health facilities and lack of female medical personnel are amongst the main concerns regarding women’s access to healthcare. While rural areas in particular face a shortage of midwives and female health professionals, projections by UNFPA show that many more pregnancies and deliveries continue to be expected in rural areas in Afghanistan than in urban ones.

Between 2014 and 2019, AfD has trained more than 600 midwives in 6 provinces of Afghanistan. AfD’s midwifery training material was developed in partnership with the Midwifery School of Geneva in Switzerland with the aim of expanding and enhancing the knowledge and skills of the midwives who would be receiving it across 10 identified key areas.

AfD in partnership with ODWs aims at training 400 midwives across 4 provinces of Afghanistan: Kabul, Logar, Wardak and Badakhshan. Following a “skills-gap protocol”, AfD delivers training to 80 government-trained community midwives, who will then become midwife trainers. The training for the 80 midwives will be run over 12 days in a secure rented venue, sourced with the help of local provincial public health officials and local community. Midwives then return to their communities and deliver the training to an additional 4 midwives each through a cascade-model approach. This method of training has proven more effective, less expensive, more sustainable and community-based than traditional training methods. After the training, the midwives will be able to better perform their roles in the healthcare system, contribute to the prevention of unnecessary maternal/infant mortality, and improve women’s participation in the workforce.

To visit the campaign’s page for donations: https://onedayswages-afd.funraise.org/

To learn more about AfD’s midwifery training program: http://www.actfordev.org/midwifery-training/

To learn more about ODWs: https://www.onedayswages.org