News and Events
Increasing Equity and Access to Safe Motherhood
Between 2006 and 2009, the SSMP Equity and Access Programme (EAP), managed by ActionAid, has worked in selected VDCs of eight districts to increase equitable access to maternal and neonatal health care services. It adopted a targeted rights based, socially inclusive approach to demand creation, working primarily through women’s groups and networks and using the REFLECT methodology.
While changes cannot be all directly attributed to EAP, comparison of household baseline and end-line survey data show great improvements in knowledge, attitudes and practices related to health care seeking across all caste groups including, importantly, a closing of the equity gap for several key indicators. Institutional delivery rates have doubled in the three year programme period, to approximately 50% of total births in the target areas, which is considerably higher than the national average of around 18%.
The EAP provides important lessons related to targeting of poor and excluded communities, community mobilisation, voice capture, public private partnerships and engaging with health service providers to improve local health services. These potentially have high relevance to planning for the next phase of the Nepal Health Programme. Please click Consultancy Report under Resources Section or simply click below link for the full report.
06/01/2010
Ashima Shrestha
SSMP
