Success in the implementation of maternal and newborn health interventions at the country level has been generally attributed to three main interlinked factors: leadership and management, resources, and end-user-related factors. Leadership and managerial capacities are critical for transformational change and sustainability, including gender-related dimensions of health systems leadership. These capacities also play a significant role in introducing and/or scaling up implementation of emergency obstetric and neonatal care in health facilities.
This project, implemented by the Tanzanian Training Centre for International Health, working in collaboration with Dalhousie University, complements current programming for accessing safe deliveries in Tanzania. It assesses the identified gaps in leadership and managerial capacities as well as the skills gaps in comprehensive emergency obstetrical and newborn care (CEmONC) in health facilities in Morogoro, Tanzania. This project employs a mixed-methods, participatory approach to research and capacity building that examines results over the longer term. It will be implemented in the same intervention health centres selected for the safe deliveries project, along with control health centres. Through enhancing leadership capacity of health centre managers and providers and CEmONC service provision, this project aims to produce research results that can contribute to improving maternal and child health service delivery. By sustaining and scaling up use of these services at the health centre level in Tanzania, it will also contribute to the optimum use of existing resources (non-human and human) for maternal, neonatal, and child health.
This project is funded by the Innovating for Maternal and Child Health in Africa program. It is a seven-year $36 million initiative funded by Global Affairs Canada, IDRC, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research
