More and Better Midwives in Rural Tanzania

Results achieved as of the end of the project (March 2022) include: (1) improved quality of midwifery education in Lake and Western Zones; (2) increased availability of skilled midwives in Lake and Western Zones; (3) enhanced professional status of midwives in targeted regions of Tanzania; (4) health training institutions achieved 85% quality standards as measured by Continuous Quality Improvement. This represents an increase from 30% at baseline to 85%; (5) target to increase the proportion of in-service training sites and institutions achieving 80% of Standard-Based Management and Recognition approach met; (6) midwifery students’ ability to offer basic emergency obstetric and newborn care increased from 25% at baseline to 95% by the end. This improved teaching and learning strategies that create skilled midwives; (7) sent 1 302 new nurse-midwife graduates (628 women; 674 men) to various health facilities in the Lake and Western Zone of Tanzania; (8) increased proportion of students in hard-to-reach areas (20% at baseline to 43% at the end); (9) increased the number of graduate nurse-midwives currently practising in various health facilities in hard-to-reach areas. This reduced the gap in nurse-midwives in these regions from 54% at baseline to 41% at the end; (10) enhanced local government authorities’ capacity to comply with deployment rules and posting of nurses and midwives improved (100%); (11) 2 037 graduates oriented on the deployment processes; (12) met targets to train midwives in gender sensitization and respectful maternal care; (13) perceptions around nursing and midwifery as a profession positively influenced both secondary school students and nursing and midwifery students; (14) improved capacities of tutors and preceptors to provide pre-service education in a gender-equitable environment; and (15) attained global and national standards for providing midwifery services.