Women's Health and Family Welfare Project
(Completed)

Description

The WHFWP project contributed to improved health of women and children in the provinces of East and West Nusa Tenggara, by enabling relevant Indonesian agencies and local communities to work together to identify and develop responses to problems of maternal and neonatal health, including by addressing underlying gender issues. This approach built on the gains made in Phase I which focused on improvements in the quality and coverage of services, by increasing the emphasis on capacity building and on community participation.

Phase 1 of the Women's Health and Family Planning Project ran from July 1995 to October 1998. Phase 2 - renamed the Women's Health and Family Welfare Project - commenced in July 2000 and was completed in June 2006. The A$27.8 million project covered all districts of West Nusa Tenggara and seven districts of East Nusa Tenggara.

The project had four interrelated components:

• Women’s Health Services, which assisted the Government of Indonesia to improve the quality of and accessibility to health care for women and their newborn infants in NTT and NTB.
• Promotion of Family Planning and Safe Motherhood, to improve the knowledge, attitudes and health-seeking behaviour of men and women for safer motherhood and family welfare, and the quality of family planning services, consistent with Australian Population Guidelines.
• Community Participation to promote and facilitate community responses to safer motherhood.
• Project Management and Integration, which promoted effective and efficient project coordination and management including integration of component activities with each other, with national and local systems and with other donors.

The Government of Indonesia’s counterparts included the Ministry of Health (DepKes) and the National Family Planning Coordinating Board (BKKBN). The provincial and district counterparts were: Bappeda (Regional Planning & Development Board), Dinas Kesehatan (Provincial & District Health Services), Kanwil BKKBN (Regional Office of BKKBN) and BPM/BPMD (Provincial & District Community Development Agency).

Achievements/outcomes

• Over 2,600 health workers received training, including midwives, nurses, family planning field workers, hospital staff, community cadres, district health office staff.
• Australia provided essential equipment and services such as blood transfusion units, radio communication equipment and established provincial and district training centres.
• Introduction of community pregnancy support networks and services (desa siaga) in 54 villages across NTT and NTB. These networks and services are aiding the promotion of birth preparedness, complication readiness and planned pregnancy.

This page was last updated on 8 July 2006

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