With United Kingdom funding, UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme supports better health for women, children and adolescents in Zambia

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), with support from the UK Department for International Development (DfID), are partnering with the Zambia Ministry of Health to improve health and nutrition and end preventable deaths among women, newborns, children and adolescents. 

The £15.5 million Joint Programme for Health System Strengthening and Social Accountability will be implemented in Central and Western Provinces from 2017 to 2021. Speaking at the signing ceremony on 30 October 2017, Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary for Administration Dr. Kennedy Malama noted that the funding will support ongoing national efforts to ensure that people have access to services that are as close to them as possible, through the primary health care system.

The Programme, said Dr. Malama, “will give the Ministry leverage towards achieving the 2021 national targets of reducing maternal mortality rates from the current 398 to less than 100 per 100,000 live births; and under 5 mortality rates from the current 75 to 35 per 100,000 live births.”

Dr. Mary Otieno, UNFPA Representative in Zambia, noted the country’s significant progress on key indicators of reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child and adolescent health and nutrition, and welcomed the renewed commitment articulated in the National Strategic Health Plan to close the outstanding gaps at policy, systems, structures, community levels. 

Dr. Otieno reaffirmed the commitment of the partner agencies to prioritize high-impact interventions and draw lessons from global evidence and best practices from around the world. UNFPA and UNICEF will work to ensure that “gender equality, community participation and inclusion have center place in the programme design, implementation and monitoring,” she emphasized, and “that accountability for results and actions is strengthened, including a strong community voice.”

Uzoamaka Gilpin, Health Advisor with DfID, commended the Ministry of Health’s bold initiative and its emphasis on strengthening primary health care. 

Noting that DFID’s support to Zambia through global health initiatives has increased in recent years, Ms. Gilpin reaffirmed the department’s commitment to work jointly with the Ministry of Health and partners to build the Ministry’s technical and managerial capacity and deliver effective, high-impact health services to children, women and adolescents in Western and Central Provinces.

The partnership’s emphasis on equitable access and human rights-based approaches is in line with Zambia’s Seventh National Development Plan, which emphasizes accelerating development efforts while leaving no one behind.