Reports from Malawi are typically
challenging reading: poverty is rampant,
national economy is down the drain, food shortage is moving an estimated 6.5
million people into need of food assistance the next 9 months…, and the list
could have been longer.
On my return from a three week stay in
Oslo, I was therefore encouraged to receive the “Malawi Demographic and Health
Survey 2015-2016” from National Statistical Office. Not everything is going the wrong way, and I
was particularly pleased to see that some indicators related to our NCA work
shows some encouraging trends.
Before sharing some results, let us look at
some key demographic information:
·
6 out of 10 respondents were
between 15 and 30 years of age. This
indicates that Malawi has a very young population, and that the birth-rate has
been high.
·
At the same time the report
shows an encouraging decline in fertility rate.
As the table below shows, the births per woman has been reduced from 6.7
in 1992 to 4.4 in 2015
Mothers are, however still
young. One out of three women between 15 and 19
years have given birth to at least one child.
Early childbearing keeps the fertility rate high, while girls are
deprived of education and prospective job careers with sustainable economy.
·
NCA has since 2002 worked
comprehensively with mother and child health.
The aim has been to contribute to the reduction of deaths among children
under five years of age. Therefore the
statistics below describes a very encouraging development. The reduction from year 2000 to 2015 is from
189 to 64 per 1,000 births! I am not
saying that NCA is the major actor, but the Minister of Health has stated that NCA
is among the significant contributors to this development!
·
NCA has over the last 10 – 12 years
contributed to building maternity wards around Malawi. Therefore it is quite
encouraging to see that the portion of live births that occurred in a health
facility increased from 55 percent in 2000 to 92 percent in 2015.
- NCA has during the last ten years been involved in training of qualified health personnel, It is therefore reassuring to see that 90% of births are now delivered with assistance of trained medical personnel, while the similar figure in 2004 was 56%.
The
report has more good news in areas NCA has been involved since 2002, but the
above glimpses will have to do for this time. The message should be: Determined and professional work pays off!
