Guinea-Bissau

Guinea-Bissau, a small, agrarian Lusophone West African nation sandwiched between Francophone Senegal and Guinea, is one of the ten poorest countries in the world. The ethnically diverse country depends on fishing and farming, with rice and cashews as its main crops. The need for well-trained health care providers is great. Indeed, skilled personnel attend only one third of births. To address this situation, since 2003 Guinea-Bissau is one of 21 West Africa nations participating in the AWARE-RH project, led by EngenderHealth.

Promoting Safe Motherhood
Through the AWARE-RH project, funded by USAID, EngenderHealth has:

• Conducted a needs assessment to determine gaps in reproductive health care;
• Trained ten physicians and two midwives at regional hospitals in infection prevention, family planning, and management of postabortion complications;
• Helped integrate postabortion care into routine maternal health care services;
• Sponsored a regional workshop on intrauterine devices (IUDs) in 2006 attended by three participants from Guinea-Bissau.