Malawi

CapacityPlus assisted the government of Malawi in planning, developing, and supporting its social service workforce. The project worked with the Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Welfare to create the country’s first degree program in social work, located at Magomero College, and to select candidates to enroll in the program from the existing social service workforce. The degree program commenced in April 2014 with 39 enrolled students. In collaboration with the Ministry, CapacityPlus also helped implement a customized version of iHRIS Manage to capture data for use in planning, recruitment, deployment, and other HR decisions. An assessment at five pilot sites identified gaps and determined district needs and readiness. CapacityPlus supported a delegation from the Ministry to attend the iHRIS Academy in Tanzania, which equipped participants with skills for developing, implementing, troubleshooting, and utilizing the system as part of a south-to-south network.

CapacityPlus built the capacity of the Christian Health Association of Malawi (CHAM) to apply the Health Workforce Productivity Analysis and Improvement Toolkit. The project trained nine CHAM managers, Ministry of Health district health officers, and CHAM health facility providers to carry out the improvement process in nine health centers in a selected district. Using findings from the productivity assessment, CHAM advocated with donors to leverage other support to act on a number of the interventions, such as piloting a community health insurance scheme to mitigate financial costs and renovating facilities to address poor infrastructure. Additionally, CHAM is providing direct follow up support to facility in-charges to implement their identified action plans. A technical report presents findings from the productivity analysis and early progress on improvement interventions.

Photo by Alice Kadango