The Institute of Training in Nursing and Obstetrical Care (Ifsio) of Parakou hosted, on Thursday, October 1, 2026, the official launch of the project “Capacity building of maternity care providers for respectful newborn maternity care (Smnr) in northern Benin.” Deployed in the departments of Borgou, Alibori, Atacora, and Donga, the project aims to build the capacities of approximately 1,500 professionals and learners and to improve the care experience of some 20,000 women, newborns, and families. The ceremony brought together authorities, technical and financial partners, health officials, teachers, and students from Ifsio and the University of Parakou.
To make maternity a space where every woman is welcomed with respect, listened to, informed, and accompanied. Such is the ambition displayed by Médecins du monde Switzerland and Ifsio through this new project, which will run for 20 months. For Isabelle Floreani, general coordinator of Médecins du monde Switzerland in Benin, the initiative responds to a major concern: obstetric violence and its consequences on the use of health services. “Obstetric violence contributes to women’s reluctance to go to health centers,” she noted, emphasizing that negative experiences can affect women’s trust in the health system and, consequently, further expose mothers and their children to complications. This situation calls, according to her, for a response that is not merely medical or technical. The project thus intends to act simultaneously on the human, organizational, pedagogical, and institutional dimensions of care.
Training to transform practices
At the heart of the mechanism is training. The program provides for the training of trainers, the capacity building of professionals and learners, but also the integration of the principles of respectful newborn maternity care into training curricula. In total, approximately 1,500 professionals and learners are targeted. The objective is to make listening, consent, confidentiality, dignity, and benevolence concrete components of daily practice. The project also provides for the equipping of 30 pilot maternity wards in the four northern departments, as well as community awareness, advocacy, research, and capitalization actions. These maternity wards will also serve as internship and learning spaces for future professionals.
A response to obstetric violence
In his remarks, the director of Ifsio, Professor Montcho Adrien Hodonou, placed the project in the continuation of the scientific exchanges organized the previous day around the sociocultural determinants of health and sexual and reproductive rights. The discussions had notably highlighted the issue of obstetric violence. “Giving life should never be proof of violence,” he hammered, calling for maternity wards to be made spaces where women can give birth in safety and dignity. For the director of Ifsio, the project thus constitutes a response to a “silent cry” heard in certain delivery rooms. He invites the four concerned health departments to fully appropriate the initiative and facilitate access to health centers as well as the availability of professionals for training.
From training to institutionalization
The representative of the Minister of Health, Professor Julien Didier Adeyemi, insisted on the need to go beyond technical skills. The quality of care, he explained, also depends on the way patients are welcomed and cared for. The project is thus based on three major axes: training, the improvement of the care environment, and the sustainability of the approach. The ambition is that the practices developed do not disappear at the end of the funding, but gradually become part of the ordinary functioning of health services. The same concern was raised by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. Representing the minister, Dr. Agounkpé M. Michael underlined that the quality of care begins with training. He called for making respectful care not a simple project activity, but a true professional culture supported by teaching, research, innovation, and quality evaluation.
An alliance between knowledge, practice, and community
For the vice-rector in charge of university research at the University of Parakou, Professor Nasser Mohamed Baco, the project meets the three fundamental missions of the university: to train, to produce research, and to serve the community. Funded by Expertise France, with the support of institutional and technical partners, the project is based on the complementarity between the field expertise of Médecins du monde Switzerland and the pedagogical and academic skills of Ifsio. Through the 30 pilot maternity wards, the 1,500 targeted professionals and learners, and the roughly 20,000 women and families concerned, the partners intend to gradually integrate respectful maternity and newborn care into the health practices of northern Benin. At the end of the 20 months, the challenge will therefore be to capitalize on achievements, document experiences, and promote their sustainable integration into the training and care system. A dynamic whose ultimate goal remains the same: to allow every woman to walk through the door of a maternity ward with confidence and receive competent, respectful, and dignified care there.
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