According to Rwanda Demographic Health Survey (DHS) 2019-2020, only 47% of Rwandans who gave birth in the 5 years preceding the survey had four or more Antenatal Care (ANC) visits and, overall, 64% of currently married women use a family planning method, with 58% using a modern method and 6% using a traditional method.
On the other hand, reports from Health Management Information System (HMIS) 2020-2021, indicate that 59% of pregnant women attended Antenatal Care visit in the first trimester and 45% of pregnant women conducted at least 4 Antenatal Care visits during their pregnancy.

Despite the efforts and achievements made through the Rwanda’s Ministry of Health and its partners to improve the above key indicators, some dropout cases from Antenatal care and family planning programs continue to be registered.

In this context, from 06-09 June 2022, Rulindo district, one of the seven districts of the Belgium-funded health intervention, in partnership with Enabel, organized a four-day workshop of key actors in Family Planning and Antenatal Care service delivery to share their best practices, identify and discuss on challenges and possible strategies to improve on quality of services related to FP uptake and ANC visits.

Participants in this session include district and hospital representatives, heads of health centres, representatives of health posts as well as secondary health posts’ providers all from Rulindo district in the Northern Province of Rwanda.

As a result of the workshop, each hospital catchment zone has elaborated improvement plan to improve quality of services and address most of factors leading to increased dropout from ANC and FP programs.

Rulindo district aims to increase to four ANC standard visits from 59% (2020-21) to 60% in 2024, and FP uptake from 63% (2020-21) to 65% in 2024 and increase post-partum family planning (PPFP) from current 66% (2020-21) to 76% in 2024.