Community Participation and Maternal and Child Health Care Service Delivery in Somalia: a Case Ofwarta-nabada District

Abstract

In practice, some of the developing and less developed countries like Somalia are characterized by poor maternal and child health care service delivery arising from the past two decades of violence and dysfunctional government. Although such issues of poor maternal and child health care service delivery could be best handled by taking a participatory approach at the community level, there is scanty of literature in the context of Somalia to link community participation and delivery of health service. Thus, the study sought to establish the influence of community participation on maternal and child health care service delivery in Warta-Nabada District. More specifically, the study looked at resource mobilization, community involvement and community empowerment in relation to maternal and child health care service delivery in Warta-Nabada District. The study was guided by participation ladder framework and it had hypotheses that were developed as guided by the reviewed literature. The study adopted descriptive correlational design targeting community members, district adminstrtaors and health care officials from Warta-Nabada district. The study selected 30 community members, 12 district administrators and 12 health care officials. Primary data was collected aided by the questionnaire and the interview guide. The analysis of the collected data was done with Statistical Package for Social Sciences supported by descriptive statistics (frequencies and percentages) and regression analysis as the inferential statistics. Content analysis was utilized during analysis of open-ended questions. The presentation of the findings was done using tables. It was established that community empowerment (β=.648, p<0.05) had the largest significant influence on maternal and child health care service delivery in Warta-Nabada District followed by resource mobilization (β=.078, p<0.05) and lastly community involvement and (β=.073, p<0.05). The study concluded that community participation had significant influence on maternal and child health care service delivery in Warta-Nabada District. The study recommended that policy makers in the Ministry of Health in Warta-Nabada District should focus more on empowerment of the community since this has the largest contribution towards maternal and child health care service delivery. The health care officials in Warta-Nabada should utilize media channels to raise more awareness on the need for the community to be involved in mobilization of resources in support of maternal and child health care service delivery. There is need for more improvement on community involvement so that it may greatly contribute towards maternal and child health care service delivery.