The Regional Center for Quality of Health Care (RCQHC) and East, Central and the Southern African Health Community (ECSA-HC) with support from USAID co-hosted the Regional Maternal and Newborn Care Forum from the 19th to 23rdAugust 2013 at the Snowcrest Hotel, Arusha ,Tanzania.
The Forum was in response to the innovative USAID Global Development Alliance (GDA), ‘Survive and Thrive’ Initiative which forges partnership between United States midwifery, obstetric, and paediatric associations with USAID, the private sector, and civil society organizations to improve the quality of facility-based maternal, newborn, and child health services to reduce preventable maternal and child deaths in developing countries.
 
 
The objectives of the forum were to:
1.    Strengthen the capacity of Regional Professional Associations to address Maternal, Newborn and Child Health issues.
2.    Orient participants on quality improvement processes.
3.    Strengthen the organizational capacity of Professional Associations.
4.    Deliberate on the formation and coordination of an African maternal and newborn care community of practice.
 
 
The Forum was attended by representatives from Ministries of Health; international, regional and national health care Professional Associations, Global Development Alliance (GDA) and development partners. Sixteen (16) East, Central and Southern African countries namely Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Lesotho, Mauritius, Malawi, Zambia, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Ethiopia, Seychelles, Botswana, Rwanda, Ghana and Burundi were represented at the Forum.
 
 
Key outputs of the forum were:
Technical updates and training of health professionals on high impact maternal and newborn care interventions using simulation based approaches as well as quality improvement processes
Identification of regional and national professional associations’ capacity building needs
Development of regional and country level action plans for strengthening/expanding health professionals clinical competencies in high impact maternal and newborn care interventions as well as strengthening professional associations in a bid to improve maternal and new born survival.

 

LAMRN Chairperson, Prof. Grace Omoni gave the Key note speech during this important international forum. To read her speech “Click Here”
To view a pictorial presentation of the various activities that took place during the five (5) day forum “Check Here”