Our Partnership with Action for Development

In Afghanistan, maternal and infant mortality rates are among the highest in the world. Long distances to health facilities and a lack of female medical personnel are among the main concerns regarding women’s access to health care. Between 2014 and 2019, Actions for Development (AfD) trained more than 600 midwives in 6 provinces of Afghanistan. AfD’s midwifery training material was developed in partnership with the Midwifery School of Geneva in Switzerland with the aim of expanding and enhancing the knowledge and skills of the midwives who would be receiving it across 10 identified key areas.

One Day’s Wages partnered with Action for Development (AfD) to train midwives across 4 provinces of Afghanistan: Kabul, Logar, Wardak, and Badakhshan. Following a “skills-gap protocol,” AfD delivered government-trained community midwives, who will then become midwife trainers. The training for the midwives ran for 12 days in a secure rented venue, sourced with the help of local provincial public health officials and the local community. Midwives then returned to their communities and delivered the training to an additional 4 midwives each through a cascade-model approach. This method of training has proven more effective, less expensive, more sustainable, and more community-based than traditional training methods. After the training, midwives are able to better perform their roles in the healthcare system, contribute to the prevention of unnecessary maternal/infant mortality, and improve women’s participation in the workforce.