The federal government has reaffirmed its commitment to harmonising nursing and midwifery training standards across ECOWAS member states to improve healthcare quality, promote professional mobility, and strengthen regional health systems.

Minister of Health and Social Welfare Muhammad Pate said this on Thursday in Abuja at a regional workshop on harmonised accreditation criteria for nursing and midwifery training institutions.

The workshop was organised by the West African Health Organisation (WAHO) to finalise regional accreditation criteria for nursing and midwifery training institutions.

Mr Pate, represented by Dakum Londji, Nigeria’s liaison officer to WAHO/African Union at the ministry, declared the wor shop open.

He said the initiative would strengthen professional standards, promote regional collaboration, and improve healthcare delivery by ensuring nursing and midwifery institutions provide quality education and produce competent graduates.

Mr Pate added that common accreditation standards across ECOWAS member states would promote professional mobility, strengthen regional cooperation, and enhance public confidence in healthcare services throughout the sub-region.

The minister emphasised that investing in nursing and midwifery education is essential to building healthier communities, safer healthcare systems, and a stronger future for the West African region.

He commended WAHO leadership, representatives of ECOWAS member states, and other stakeholders for participating in efforts to strengthen nursing, midwifery, and health professional education across the region.

Also, Bosede Arogundade, WAHO Professional Officer for Nursing and Midwifery, said the organisation was working to harmonise training curricula and establish common accreditation standards across ECOWAS member states.

Ms Arogundade said this during a presentation on WAHO’s efforts to harmonise nursing and midwifery education, explaining that the initiative aimed to improve training quality and address disparities across countries.

She said the initiative formed part of WAHO’s mandate to strengthen health workforce development, improve professional recognition, and facilitate movement of qualified health workers across member states and countries.

Ms Arogundade cited Article 60 of the revised ECOWAS Treaty, which encourages member states to cooperate in developing human resources and harmonising education and training policies and programmes across the region.

She added that the treaty encouraged exchanges among educational institutions, recognition of academic and professional qualifications, and establishment of regional centres of excellence in specialised disciplines across West Africa.

Ms Arogundade said the initiative is increasingly important because of persistent health workforce shortages, differences in training standards, and continuing brain drain across West Africa and neighbouring countries.

She explained that the process gained momentum in 2006 following a special resolution of the 59th World Health Assembly on rapidly strengthening human resources for health across member states.

She said ECOWAS health ministers subsequently adopted a resolution calling for harmonised curricula for health professionals across member states, laying the foundation for WAHO’s regional programme and future interventions.

Ms Arogundade said WAHO began implementing the programme in 2007 with a workshop on diploma and certificate equivalencies, followed by a health workforce assessment meeting in 2008 across the region.

She said the first multidisciplinary curriculum harmonisation exercise took place in 2009, with the initial review completed in 2010 and subsequent reviews conducted at five-year intervals across participating countries.

Ms Arogundade said nursing and midwifery education initially faced significant disparities, including differences in qualification titles, duration of study, admission requirements, and regulatory arrangements across member states and training institutions.

She said some countries lacked regulatory bodies for the professions, making it difficult to establish consistent standards and ensure comparable nursing and midwifery qualifications across the sub-region.

She said WAHO subsequently harmonised basic and post-basic nursing and midwifery curricula, establishing equivalencies between Francophone and Anglophone training programmes in spite of differences in their educational structures and systems.

According to her, the process established equivalence between six-year training programmes in Francophone countries and five-year programmes in Anglophone countries to promote comparable professional standards across the region.

She said the initiative also identified essential competencies nurses and midwives needed to provide safe, effective, and high-quality care across different healthcare settings in the region and communities.

These competencies included managing clinical conditions, supporting community health interventions, applying nursing and midwifery research methods, and providing preventive, promotional, and rehabilitative care for mothers and children across communities.

Ms Arogundade said the framework also emphasised managing medical and surgical conditions and providing culturally appropriate care during pregnancy, labour, and childbirth to improve outcomes for women and newborns across the region.

She said the organisation subsequently developed a common regional framework with stakeholders, including professional bodies, training institutions, regulatory authorities, and regional and international organisations across West Africa.

Ms Arogundade listed WAHO’s achievements to include minimum training benchmarks, equivalencies for nursing and midwifery qualifications, continuing professional development programmes, and e-learning opportunities for rural health workers across the region.

She added that the organisation continued training trainers in critical intervention areas and developing implementation roadmaps to strengthen professional development, improve retention, and reduce health worker migration across member states.

She said collaboration among member states had facilitated exchanges of skills, knowledge, teaching resources, and equipment while encouraging partnerships between public and private institutions involved in health workforce development across West Africa.

According to her, the harmonisation initiative had become a flagship regional integration programme, with WAHO increasingly sharing its experience with stakeholders interested in harmonising health professional curricula across the region.

In spite of progress, she identified inadequate funding, insufficient training and retraining opportunities, workforce attrition, and persistent difficulties motivating and retaining health professionals as major challenges facing member states.

She added that further harmonisation of postgraduate specialities remained necessary, while limited financial support from member states and a shortage of development partners constrained health workforce capacity development across the region.

Ms Arogundade said WAHO intended to train more health professionals, maximise existing training facilities, strengthen South-South collaboration, and support countries implementing harmonised curricula across nursing and midwifery institutions throughout West Africa.

She said the organisation would also advocate improved employment packages for health workers in rural and hard-to-reach communities while evaluating the implementation of curricula harmonised over the years across member states.

She urged stakeholders to support finalisation and implementation of regional accreditation criteria, emphasising that common standards would strengthen quality assurance and improve comparability in nursing and midwifery education across the region.

(NAN)