Monrovia – The government of Liberia and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) have signed two separate agreements valued at 3.3 million United States Dollars to support the strengthening of the maternal and newborn health sector of Liberia.
The two projects are geared at supporting the Government of Liberia’s investment plan for building a resilient health system in 18 health facilities across 13 counties.
“These interventions will contribute to the government’s effort to reduce maternal and newborn deaths in Liberia through a strong Maternal Newborn Death Surveillance and Response and a more effective delivery of emergency obstetric and newborn care to women and girls,” UNFPA Liberia Country Representative, Dr. Oluremi Sogunro says at the signing ceremony in Monrovia.
“In addition to strengthening the delivery of maternal and newborn health services, a component of the projects will support the physical improvement of maternities and supply of medical equipment to the targeted counties.
The physical spaces of the maternities of county referral hospitals with at least one additional health facility will be improved to accommodate client load and ease operational spaces for care providers in a manner that contributes to the improvement of maternal and newborn health delivery,” Dr. Sogunro says.
For his part, Liberia’s Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Boima M. Kamara, said the Government welcomed every effort aimed at improving the life of its people and called for strict adherence to the overall objectives of the two projects.
“We hope that the signing of these agreements can bring about tangible results for the people. We would like to see the spending of more than ninety percent of the funds directly on the beneficiaries,” Minister Kamara says.
Continuing, the Finance and Development Planning Minister said that though the projects would be implemented through the Ministry of Health, he would like to see the involvement of his Ministry in all aspects of the implementation process.
The two projects are funded by the World Bank, through an additional financing grant in support to building a resilient health System in Liberia Ebola recovery and reconstruction trust Fund and the Ebola response project.