APPP Policy Brief 5. Improving maternal health when resources are limited: Safe motherhood in rural Rwanda

Abstract

Over the past decade, Rwanda has managed to overcome many of the critical bottlenecks to make impressive progress on maternal health. It has done so despite the fact that health spending per capita in the country remains below the sub-Saharan African average. Africa Power and Politics (APPP) carried out eleven months of fieldwork during 2009-2011 in the rural Rwandan districts of Nyamagabe and Musanze. This indicates that substantial gains can be made, even in the absence of adequate material resources