Health
HIV/AIDS
The largest portion of USAID/Rwanda’s activities in health is in the area of HIV/AIDS, funded through the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEFFAR). Rwanda is one of 15 PEPFAR focus countries.
For 2007, the PEPFAR/Rwanda budget is approximately US $104.7 million, of which USAID manages $74.1 million, funding some 40 community and clinical service partners that implement more than 200 activities in cooperation with the Government of Rwanda (GoR) in 22 of the country’s 30 districts.
These activities come under the headings of “Prevention”, “Care” and “Treatment”, and include child and youth programs based on the GoR’s focus on education, abstinence, faithfulness and condoms; coordinated drug purchasing; decentralization of health care service delivery; support for schooling and vocational training; self-help and economic development programs for associations of people living with HIV/AIDS; voluntary counseling and testing; upgraded nurse training in HIV/AIDS treatment and care; and integration of malaria, family planning, and tuberculosis into HIV treatment and care.
Future PEPFAR funding will include an energetic effort to incorporate PEPFAR programming into USAID/Rwanda’s other health activities, as well as its economic development, and government and democracy programs.
Malaria
Rwanda is also among the first seven of 15 countries targeted under the historic, $1.2 billion U.S. Presidential Malaria Initiative (PMI) to cut malaria-related deaths in Africa by half, over five years. Rwanda will receive $20 million in its first full PMI year. USAID is working with the GoR to develop policies and procedures, as well as to roll out and scale up four primary interventions: integration of prevention of malaria in pregnant women; use of artemisinin-based combination therapy (“Coartem”) as first line treatment for malaria in health facilities and in home-based management of malaria fever in children younger than five; distribution of long-lasting insecticide treated mosquito nets; and targeted home spraying with a non-DDT insecticide.
Family Planning and Reproductive Health
USAID/Rwanda is currently providing more than $6 million a year in support of the GoR’s national family planning strategy, to ensure that Rwandans have healthy families by spacing or limiting the number of births in the way that best meets their family’s needs. USAID/Rwanda’s commitment is to improve clients’ access to and use of high quality voluntary family planning services that offer a full range of methods. To this end, USAID local partner organizations train health providers and provide supportive supervision, sensitize Rwandans to the importance of family planning, and purchase family planning commodities to ensure that health facilities can adequately meet their clients’ needs.
Maternal and Child Health
USAID is leading the follow-up from the multi-agency assessment of maternal, newborn and child health services in Rwanda, and is playing a key role in improving maternal health through obstetric care training. Child health is being addressed through technical assistance for immunization, roll out of facility and community-based “Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses”, essential nutrition activities, and safe water activities through water treatment, as well as hygiene and sanitation. Rwanda has been selected for the Safe Birth Africa Initiative, which aims to reduce maternal and neonatal deaths in 3 to 5 years through proven life-saving interventions such as skilled birth attendance, active management of third stage of labor, and essential newborn care.
Health Sector Development
In addition to supporting the immediate goal of improving Rwandans’ health and saving lives, USAID/Rwanda’s health activities contribute to long-term capacity building and system strengthening. Significant support is provided through technical assistance to the GoR for decentralization in the health sector, health policy development, pre-service training and competency-based nursing curricula design, support for masters and doctoral programs in public health, strengthening post-graduate medical training, and healthcare financing.
Health Fact Sheet
