The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is the largest country by land area in Africa and rich in natural resources. But decades of war, conflict, and instability have left its population of more than 67 million with limited access to even basic health services and a severe health workforce shortage.

IntraHealth International's programs in the DRC focused on helping the Ministry of Health better plan and manage its health workforce, improving the education and training of midwives and nurses, and strengthening the Ministry of Social Affairs to meet the needs of orphans and other vulnerable children.

Selected Activities

In the DRC, IntraHealth worked in close collaboration with national and local institutions and stakeholders to:

• Strengthen human resource information management in 57 health zones that serve 7.5 million people using iHRIS.
• Review staffing standards and use the Workload Indicators of Staffing Needs (WISN) methodology to help the ministry of health align its health workforce with the priority health needs of its population.
• Conduct pre-service education studies to inform the country’s efforts to strengthen nursing and midwifery education through our CapacityPlus project and the US government’s Nursing Education Partnership Initiative.
• Improve coordination of child protection interventions by strengthening strategic planning, leadership, and communication for the social service workforce at the national level and in the province of Kinshasa.