(Uraneta K4H)

Health

Updated 20.11.2019 // The Norwegian bilateral support to the health sector builds on the priority issues in health within the Norwegian development policy; maternal-, new-born-, child-, and adolescent health and reproductive rights, as well as system’s strengthening through training and deployment of health personnel.

07. Mar 2017

Global health is a prioritized area within Norwegian development policy, built on a premise to promote and respect fundamental human rights and ensuring equal access to health services based on a strong, sustainable and nationally owned health system. Norwegian effort in global health are spearheaded by political leadership at the highest level and backed up by global diplomacy and investment of Norwegian aid resources.

Health is one of three priority sectors for Norway in Malawi. The sector is heavily dependent on donor funding, as around two thirds of the resources are from external sources. Norway is an important bilateral partner. Other central donors to the sector are th UK (DFID), USAID, KFW and GIZ. Important multilateral partners are UNICEF, UNFPA and WHO. Global initiatives such as GAVI and GFATM also provide substantial funds to the health sector in Malawi.

New-born and child mortality has been reduced in Malawi in recent years. The reasons for this is improved access to vaccines and health facilities in rural areas. Today aroun 90% of all deliveries take place in health facilities. This has lad to a reduction in child mortality, but many new-borns and children under five still die of preventable causes, such as infections, diarrhoea and malaria. Maternal mortaliy remains high in Malawi - 547 out 100,000 mothers die of pregnancy related causes each year. This amounts to 10-12 mothers every day. 17% of these deaths are due to complications after unsafe abortions.

Although these has been a 70% increase in graduating health workers from 2010 to 2015, there is a 45% vacancy rate in the public health sector. Most health workers work in hospitals in urban areas, although over 80% of Malawi's population live in rural areas.

These numbers show that although there is some development in a positive direction, the health sector is still facing challenges in the years to come. Norway wishes to be a long-term partner for Malawi and support the Government of Malawi to provide basic health care services to the country's population, and thus working towards achieving the Sustainable Development goal on health.

The main goals for health in the bilateral cooperation with Malawi is to:

Contribute to improved health services and increased quality of health personnel
To make the highest attainable standard of health services available to Malawi's population

In line with national and global policy, the Norwegian embassy supports programmes aiming to reach results by:

Strengthening the Malawi Government's ability to implement its health sector plan
Increase capacity to train health personnel and manage health personnel deployment
Strengthening service delivery for maternal and child health
Improving service delivery for family planning, i.e. sexual and reproductive health and rights, especially for adolescents

Government Cooperation

The Embassy is currently one of three donors (together with DFID and KFW) supporting Malawi's Ministry of Health (MoH) through the Health Services Joint Fund (HSJF). It is a funding mechanism in support of the government's priority budget lines, for the implementation of the Health Sector Strategic Plan 2017-2022 (HSSP II). Through HSJF, Norway has, among other things, paid for the procurement of vaccines as well as for water and electricity at health facilities. The funds are channelled through commercial banks with fiduciary and procurement oversight provided by the donors. The current HSJF agreement runs through 2020 and amounts to NOK 238,9 million. The Embassy is planning to renew the agreement when it expires, supporting the implementation of the HSSP II through the HSJF for three more years.

Civil Society

With financial support from the Government of Norway, Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) and Ministry of Health (MoH) in Malawi have partnered with nine nursing and midwifery training institutions to support training of nurses and midwives. Over 1000 nurses and midwives have gone through nursing and midwifery training through this programme. We are projecting that once these trained health workers get deployed, they will significantly reduce the existing gaps in the nursing and midwifery health workforce, and will positively contribute to efforts for reduced maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality.

The Embassy works on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights through UNFPA.

By funding through several agreements with the Embassy, the Malawi country office of the Norwegian Church Aid has built an Intensive Care Unit and a High Dependency Unit at Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe.

The Embassy has a long-standing cooperation with the College of Medicine. Through the College, Norway has funded the training of both medical doctors, surgeons, obstreticians and other health personnel. Norwegian funding has also gone towards building a library and student hostels at the College.

Since 2008, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) has collaborated with the Malawian Ministry of Health (MoH) and other partners, including the International Association of National Public Health Institutes (IANPHI) to support the establishment of the Public Health Institute of Malawi (PHIM). The collaboration includes efforts to imrpove the national capacity to prevent, detect and respond to public health events of national and international concern in Malawi.

Multilateral Cooperation