Angola

In 2003, just after Angola’s three-decade civil war, and in the midst of the resulting health crisis, Pathfinder began our work. One of our goals: to rebuild Angola’s reproductive health and family planning infrastructure.

Since that time, we have worked with our in-country partners, including the Angolan Ministry of Health, to stabilize and improve the health status of some of the most underserved Angolans.

Women and girls are in dire need of services. Angola has the 2nd lowest CPR, and one of the highest maternal mortality rates, in the world. And, 12% of adolescents, ages 12-19, become pregnant every year. Pathfinder is working to reach them.

Through programs that expand access to family planning and maternal care, we are making progress. By integrating services, like malaria prevention, into reproductive health care, we are addressing the underlying factors that cost mothers their lives.

Having endured three decades of civil war, Angola is struggling to restore its public health infrastructure and meet the health care needs of millions of refugees and internally displaced people. The war, which ended in 2002, left many Angolans in a situation of extreme poverty and hunger, with virtually no access to health care (65 percent of the country's health units were destroyed) or even basic sanitation. 

In the backdrop of these urgent and immediate crises, Pathfinder began work in Angola in 2003 to rebuild the country's reproductive health and family planning infrastructure, and address health care priorities such as the country's devastatingly high infant and maternal mortality rates. With a large percentage of the Angolan population made up of youth (43 percent of the population is under 15) and adolescent pregnancy rates among the top 10 in the world (14 percent of all births are by women ages 15-19), Pathfinder places a high priority on services that address the sexual and reproductive health needs of adolescents and young people.

Building capacity is a critical component to strengthening health systems in Angola. Pathfinder works directly with the Angolan government to identify and address the country’s most urgent needs by strengthening key elements of the health system such as the country-wide supply chain management system for contraceptive supplies, and designing and developing a national family planning strategy.

Along the way, we mentor and train health providers and public officials so that they develop the skills necessary to maintain the improved systems. For many providers and clinicians, training is a not a regular occurrence, which leads to poor quality service delivery. The same applies to people who run other parts of the health system (e.g. managers, logisticians, supervisors). Pathfinder works to change this paradigm by making training and mentoring a priority. Doing so builds sustained capacity and strengthens the foundation of Angolan health systems.

Pathfinder has seen huge progress in Angola:

• 93,862 doses of injectable contraceptives were distributed
• 14,468 pregnant women received HIV counseling and testing
• 50,131 community members attending community health talks