For many years, Afghanistan has grappled with one of the highest maternal mortality rates globally. Since 2001, the country faced a severe shortage of midwives, with only 1’000 practitioners available.…
While significant strides have been made over the last two decades in restructuring Afghanistan’s health system, Afghanistan remains off course in meeting it’s global health targets (SDGs). In 2013, AfD set up a CHC in Kabul. It is the first port of call for 60,000 people and used by around 2,000 patients every month.
Afghanistan is recognized as a “high priority country” by the Global Nutrition Cluster (GNC) for tackling malnutrition.
Action for Development’s (AfD) has focused on finding solutions to Afghanistan’s healthcare crisis since its very beginning. One of the main issues that the country faces is a lack of an efficient reproductive health education.
The idea of a midwifery training came in response to the communities’ dire needs. Under the Taliban, female healthcare specialists were banned from their jobs, and males were forbidden from caring for women. This created a huge gap in women’s healthcare since there were only around 467 working midwives for a total population of around 20 million (World Bank). When the regime was overthrown in 2001, the Government of Afghanistan hurried to answer the population’s needs, and by 2012 Afghan midwifery forces were up to 3,500 (UNFPA 2014). However, the lack of time and resources did not allow for high-quality training for midwives. As a consequence, the course was limited to 18 months rather than the 4 years it lasts in developed countries.
English 
French