Ethiopia: Maternal and Child Health

Remote and mobile - women and children at risk

The challenge

Children growing up in the nomadic communities of the Maasai in Kenya and the Afar in Ethiopia face their own particular challenges.

These communities move regularly with their livestock according to the availability of water, pasture and other resources, and often in remote areas at great distance from essential services such as health care.

Women and children are at greatest risk in the hours around childbirth. Mobile communities and uncoordinated service provision means that pregnant women are left without antenatal care, so if things go wrong, there are no clear pathways for referral.

Lack of access to maternal and child health care means a high infant mortality rate, high maternal death rates, and poor health and nutrition for the surviving children.

The spread of disease is more likely as people move across the country, and children are vulnerable to diarrhoea, measles, malaria and HIV/AIDS.

Small and geographically dispersed, these nomadic populations face unique development challenges, where the exchange of goods and services and the maintenance of social networks are inherently fragile because of long distance, economies of scale and harsh environments.

Australia Africa Community Engagement Scheme (AACES)

Anglican Overseas Aid has partnered with Australian Volunteers International (AVI) to further engage the Australian community in our AACES program in Ethiopia. You can read our

Read our 'A Road Less Travelled' blog to find out more about how our partnership with AVI is helping the Afar and Massai communities.

Our response

Extensive problems require an extensive response. With help from substantial funding from AusAID, Anglican Overseas Aid is embarking on a major project over five years to address these challenges, building on the strengths of its previous work in the Afar region.
With its project partners, Anglican Overseas Aid will, under the Australia Africa Community Engagement Scheme (AACES):

• Train local health workers in basic maternal and child health services to improve pre- and post-natal care for women and children.
• Increase access to water and sanitation
• Increase access to adequate nutrition for women and children.
• Improve literacy rates among women and children.
• Develop sustainable income generating activities for women.
• Reduce the spread of HIV and AIDS through awareness campaigns.
• Influence policy changes at the local and national level to increase access to services beyond the life of this project.