Health facility and health worker baseline assessment for reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child health and nutrition services

Abstract

Rationale for the baseline health facility and health worker evaluation continued, stronger and coordinated efforts are needed to reduce health disparities, ensure high coverage, and move Zambia closer to its MDG targets. In collaboration with UNICEF, the recently formulated national program, “Accelerating Progress towards Maternal, Neonatal and Child Morbidity and Mortality Reduction in Zambia” (also referred to as the MDG Acceleration Initiative, or MDGi) will operationalize this strategy over the next four years. The program aims to improve the availability and quality of maternal, neonatal and child health & nutrition services in 11 selected target districts in Copperbelt and Lusaka Provinces. The program will focus on strengthening service delivery at the district-level, and on building management capacity at the provincial- and national-levels. Supply-side interventions for improving the availability and quality of services will be complemented by demand side measures implemented at the community- and household-levels. As a prelude to the implementation of this program, we conducted a baseline assessment to determine health facility readiness and to provide input to guide program planning, monitoring and evaluation. An analysis of the results of this assessment is presented in this report for all 11 districts stratified by different levels of the health system.