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Nadezhda’s baby is 15 minutes old. “I’m very happy and excited, I feel as if I am in seventh heaven. People have been telling me how hard it would be to give birth, but in fact it was much easier than I feared. The midwife was very encouraging; she helped and supported me all along.”

Husband Pavel adds: “I cried with happiness when our son was born. We have been waiting so long for this baby.”

In August 2009 a two-year project was launched to improve maternal and child health in Kazakhstan. WHO/Europe provides technical support for the project, which is co-financed by the European Union.

The aim is to support improvements in the health services for pregnant women, mothers, newborn babies and children. This will also assist the Kazakh Ministry of Health in achieving Millennium Development Goals 3–5, which aim to reduce child mortality and improve maternal health, using a gender approach. The project will focus on three pilot regions: Karaganda, South Kazakhstan and Aktobe.

Aims

The project aims:

• to strengthen the health system in Kazakhstan in order to provide equal access to good quality services for women and children;
• to give high priority to the needs of vulnerable groups;
• to improve quality of care during pregnancy, childbirth, the postpartum period and childhood through the introduction of updated management guidelines on major complications; and
• to support the Ministry of Health in developing and implementing a comprehensive maternal and child component in the national health strategy, in accordance with international standards.

Background

Following Kazakhstan’s independence, the quality of the health services deteriorated, mainly because public funding was significantly reduced. Today, the system faces a number of challenges that influence maternal, infant and child health, including:

• informal payments for health care;
• regional differences when it comes to per capita allocations for health services;
• uneven distribution of health facilities and the provision of health care workers;
• insufficient access to pharmaceuticals.

At the launch, Norbert Jousten, Ambassador, Head of the European Union Delegation to Kazakhstan, said: “The European Union has a marked interest in a political partnership and cooperation with Kazakhstan and central Asia, for several reasons. One of the reasons is our interest in promoting social development, which is why we have engaged in this project. Health is an integral part of social development.”

Tamara Voschenkova, Vice-Minister of Health, said: “The problems of mother and child health are high on our agenda. We are not happy with the rate of reduction of the maternal and infant mortality in Kazakhstan. We know the WHO has some very effective tools to deal with these problems, which is why we have engaged in this joint project.”