Nigeria: The Midwives Service Scheme - an Emerging Success Story

What the report says

Nigeria Health Watch, in an AllAfrica-distributed blog post, highlighted the Midwives Service Scheme as a promising response to Nigeria’s long-running maternal health crisis. The article said the program, managed by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, was created in 2009 to help address shortages of skilled birth attendants in rural primary health facilities.

According to the report, the scheme recruits midwives from across Nigeria, including some who were unemployed or retired, and places them in community health centers organized around referral general hospitals. The post said the model covers facilities in all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, and that the midwives receive training and basic delivery supplies to support antenatal care, childbirth and related services. It also noted that the scheme uses mobile phones to send facility data to a central server for monitoring and analysis.

The blog framed the initiative as especially important because maternal mortality remains very high in some parts of the country, including the North East. It said the program has attracted support from other health-sector partners, including WHO, UNICEF, PATHFINDER International and the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs. The broader significance, as presented in the article, is that the scheme offers a practical example of how targeted staffing, referral links and real-time data systems can improve primary care delivery.