The World Bank (BM) has praised the “considerable” progress made by Morocco in recent decades in terms of reducing maternal and infantile mortality rates.
In recent decades, the Kingdom has made “considerable progress in reducing maternal, neonatal and infantile mortality rates, as well as in the improvement of the main indicators of maternal and child Health and nutrition”, welcomed the international institution in a note published on Wednesday.
The World Bank underlines, in this regard, that access to essential maternal and child health services, “has improved considerably in Morocco in recent decades.”
It points out, however, that deviations persist between urban and rural circles, noting that today 96% of women in urban areas give birth in a health establishment, compared to 73.4% in rural areas.
In addition, the institution based in Washington recalls that in 2022, Morocco has set up a community health system aimed at strengthening maternal and infant health and infantiles in rural areas.
Carried out within the framework of a partnership between the National Human Development Initiative (INDH), the Ministry of Health and Social Protection and UNICEF, this project was deployed in the pilot phase in three priority regions covering 14 provinces and 56 rural health centers, notes the Bretton Woods institution.
She explains that the particularity of this new program is that it is based on the coordination of three actors, simultaneously involving rural health centers, Dar Al Oumouma and community relay.
“The process of taking care of pregnant women begins before childbirth: each woman benefits from prenatal consultations. Community relay persons are informed that they must attend at least four prenatal consultations”, explains Najat Nadifi, president of the Riaaya association for the health of women and children, quoted by the BM.
According to the World Bank, the pilot phase of this community health system has benefited around 285,000 beneficiaries.
She underlines that following the “encouraging results” of this phase, the INDH, in coordination with the Ministry of Health and Social Protection, and with the technical support of the World Bank, has developed a strategy of scaling this device.
This strategy includes a detailed action plan aimed at strengthening the programmatic model and the performance management system of the community health system, in particular by the integration of automated tools for collecting and analyzing data, thus allowing faster and better informed decision-making, it is the same source.
