From February 2005 to January 2010, a Community-oriented Reproductive Health (CoRH) project is being implemented in two townships in Myanmar by the Department of Health (DOH), Ministry of Health (MOH), and JOICFP, under the JICA PROTECO scheme. (Click here for details).

From 1st to 10th May 2005, two MOH officials, and four representatives from the two townships, took part in a study tour to the JICA Reproductive Health (RH) Project in Nghe An, Vietnam, accompanied by Ryoko Nishida, Director, International Program, JOICFP.

The visitors were first briefed on the project and the overall RH situation in Vietnam by the project chief advisor, Mayumi Katsube, before observations that included their activities and health facilities from the provincial down to the commune level.

The Myanmar team received presentations from their project counterparts, staff of the MCH/FP Center, on project achievements and lessons learned. They discussed replication and applicability of the Nghe An model to Vietnam national strategy, and the RH situation and program in Myanmar.

Exchanging information with Commune Health Center staff

At the commune level, the Myanmar team members met with Women's Union volunteers promoting community-based health structured on Japanese Aiiku-han experience, and they observed role plays as part of IEC activities to promote antenatal care.

Trying out the improved user-friendly weighing scale
for pregnant women in the MCH/FP Center, Nghe An

In Hanoi, they met with MOH Vietnam officials to be briefed on national RH policy, and with JICA Hanoi staff, as well as visiting the top referral hospital in the country.

In Myanmar, a high percentage of deliveries are at home, some services are provided by the private sector, and there are differences in the level of manpower from that in Vietnam.

Despite these differences, lessons from the Nghe An Project can be adapted for use in Myanmar as follows.

RH priorities in Myanmar

1 To increase utilization of RH services, especially those focusing on safe motherhood:

2 To increase awareness and knowledge of RH among community people

3 Strengthening management systems

A demonstration of an educational session
using Maggie the Apron

Recommendations

Recommendations for the Myanmar project include:

1 Strengthening of institutional delivery, while home delivery is made safe with the attendance of trained personnel
2 Strengthening of community support groups through improved networking between the community and health staff
3 Strengthening of monitoring system with follow-up training activities to ensure staff, technical and management capacity, and commitment from the community

It was also recommended that the Vietnam project strengthen its coordination with other agencies and departments to ensure further expansion and institutionalization of project activities and good practices.

On this last point, the Nghe An project staff also benefited from the visit in that they had the opportunity to review, present and share the project experiences, which will be useful in applying their project outcomes to the national RH strategy and expanding to other parts of the country.

Study mission evaluation

The Myanmar mission indicated that the visit contained the right balance of elements, and that observing Aiiku-han activities had been most useful. The effective utilization of the MCH handbook, and the strong links between health staff and the community were also positively evaluated.

Both the Myanmar and Vietnam side asked that observation visits such as this be continued, with the possibility of expanding to other countries as well.