New guidance supports midwives as leaders in humanitarian response
Midwives are essential providers of sexual, reproductive, maternal and newborn health services during humanitarian emergencies. In some settings, they may be the only sexual and reproductive health providers available. Yet midwives are still too often left out of emergency planning, coordination and decision-making.
A new practical resource aims to change this. Programmatic Guidance to Position Midwives as Leaders and Frontline Providers in Humanitarian Response: Linking Strategy with Action provides clear steps for integrating midwives throughout humanitarian action. It was developed by UNFPA with technical contributions from ICM and other partners.
The guidance is organised around three phases:
- Preparedness: Strengthen policies, education, financing and workforce planning before a crisis. This includes integrating midwives and essential sexual and reproductive health services into national emergency plans.
- Response: Support the rapid deployment of midwives and ensure they are included in humanitarian coordination. The guidance also highlights the safety, wellbeing and mental health of midwives working in difficult conditions.
- Recovery: Retain and support the midwifery workforce after an emergency. Use lessons from the response to strengthen policies, services and health systems for the future.
The guidance includes practical tools for programme managers and partners. These can be adapted to different national and humanitarian contexts. While the resource is primarily intended for UNFPA country offices, it is also relevant to governments, national midwives’ associations, educators, employers and humanitarian organisations.
A key message is that midwives’ associations must be recognised as strategic partners. They should be supported to strengthen their institutional capacity and lead work on education, professional standards, quality assurance, workforce management and policy advocacy. A strong, unified and transparent midwife association is a key enabler of all other preparedness activities, given its critical role and wide membership networks that extend from major cities to village and community levels.
ICM contributed technical expertise throughout the development of the guidance. ICM also co-developed Annex A with UNFPA. The annex presents a consolidated set of Minimum Initial Service Package (MISP) competencies for midwives, aligned with the ICM Essential Competencies for Midwifery Practice.
These competencies provide a practical framework to help governments and partners understand which additional clinical competencies are required for midwives to be able to implement de four MISP service provision objectives and to ensure midwives have the knowledge and skills needed to deliver essential, life-saving care during crises. Governments and partners can also use them to:
- Review national scopes of midwifery practice
- Strengthen pre-service education
- Identify training and skills gaps
- Support policy and regulatory advocacy
- Plan humanitarian midwifery workforces and deployment rosters
By turning global standards into practical actions, the guidance can help countries prepare and support midwives to lead before, during and after humanitarian emergencies.