Advocacy, Association

Strengthening Midwifery Services with UNFPA

ICM, UNFPA

Working with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), ICM has set out to deliver a broad range of initiatives designed to further contribute to the professionalisation of midwifery globally and strengthen ICM’s member associations (MAs) both locally and regionally, focusing on advocacy, education, respectful maternity care and quality midwifery consulting services.

Advocacy

As part of its efforts to further strengthen MAs, ICM developed specific advocacy resources for midwives, specifically an Advocacy Toolkit, a tool designed to evolve as MAs provide feedback on its implementation. The project also involved running advocacy workshops during ICM’s regional conferences with an aim to help ensure midwives can advocate for women and newborns in community and health care settings, as well as in other areas including but not limited to pollical, social, educational and economic areas. 

Quality Midwifery Education 

Since education is an integral part of advancing midwifery globally, ICM developed the Midwifery Education Development Pathway (MPath), which provides a cohesive approach to program development and implementation. A comprehensive set of evidence-based resources developed for global use and local adaptation will increase the consistency of curriculum design, learning and teaching methodologies, teacher competence, assessment processes, practical and applied learning opportunities, midwifery competence development and quality assurance measurement. In this project, ICM adapted the training program to prepare teachers in competency-based education pedagogy to improve alignment with relevant global standards. This in turn has provided a solid foundation for further development of MPath and the development of an online course that targets support to programmes not yet meeting the global standard. 

For more information on MPath, please contact the Programmes and Partnerships team, info@internationalmidwives.org 

Respectful Maternity Care (RMC)

RMC is a universal human right. Disrespect and abuse of women during maternity care can significantly impact women’s willingness to seek out life-saving maternity care and undermine the value and crucial role of midwives in national health systems and the global health space. Midwives are a critical link to implementing and improving RMC, and it is imperative that they understand their role. To help midwives, ICM educates midwives about the importance of RMC through various workshops and develops and disseminates RMC guidelines. The Respect Toolkit is a tool midwives can use to implement RMC.

Quality Midwifery Consultancy Services

As the technical expert on midwifery, ICM recognises the importance of quality service provision to its partners, stakeholders and members. In this project, ICM developed training modules and processes that midwives seeking to represent ICM as a consultant must undertake to ensure quality and consistency of practice, education and application.