Beyond deliveries and antenatal consultations, the UNFPA/ECHO-CBCHS collaboration continues to deliver a comprehensive package of SRH, GBV response, family planning, and community inclusion services — all free and accessible to those who need them most. This multifaceted approach is transforming lives and restoring hope in conflict-affected communities of NW and SW Cameroon.

A Broad, Rights-Based Spectrum of Care

With the provision of SRH and GBV emergency kits from UNFPA, these specific CBCHS health facilities have been able to:

• Provide safe delivery and emergency obstetric care, including management of complicated births and newborn resuscitation.
• Offer post-rape and GBV clinical care following recognized international protocols — including post-rape treatment, STI prevention, emergency contraception, psychosocial support, and referrals where needed.
• Deliver family planning services — counselling and provision of modern contraceptive methods — to women and girls in crisis-affected settings, helping prevent unintended pregnancies and enable reproductive autonomy.
• Administer newborn and neonatal care, ensuring healthy beginnings for infants born under difficult circumstances.

These services are provided free of charge, removing financial barriers that often prevent the most vulnerable from accessing care.

Community-Centered Approaches Strengthen Impact

Recognizing that access to health services goes beyond facility-based care, the project also invests in community engagement and prevention. Youth peer educators, trained earlier this year, have been active in bridging the gap between health facilities and the community, offering information on SRH, family planning, GBV prevention, and safe referral pathways.

Similarly, community health workers have conducted sensitization sessions, raising awareness about antenatal care, safe delivery, family planning, maternal and newborn care, and GBV support services — facilitating trust, reducing stigma, and encouraging early care seeking.

These outreach efforts are critical in conflict-affected and remote communities where misinformation, stigma, and fear often prevent women and girls from seeking care.

A Sustainable Model of Care and Health System Strengthening

The project goes beyond one-off interventions. The capacity-building of midwives and frontline health workers, the regular supply of emergency kits, continuous monitoring and evaluation, and inclusion of community-based outreach form a sustainable, resilient health delivery model.

The recent M&E mission — conducted over several weeks — demonstrated not only compliance with emergency obstetric and newborn care standards, but also growth in service uptake, improved care quality, and renewed community trust.

By strengthening local capacity and embedding SRH/GBV services into existing health structures, the UNFPA/ECHO–CBCHS partnership ensures that care remains available — even amid insecurity, displacement, and ongoing humanitarian stress.

Why This Matters

For thousands of women and girls — internally displaced, caught in conflict, or living in remote hard-to-reach communities — the availability of free, quality SRH and GBV services has meant the difference between life and death, dignity and despair. Safe births, access to contraception, timely GBV care, newborn survival, and community psychosocial support are now a reality.

This initiative demonstrates a high-impact, cost-effective investment: every deployed midwife, every SRH/GBV kit, every training session, every outreach activity directly saves lives, reduces maternal and newborn mortality, prevents GBV-related trauma, and rebuilds trust in health services. The project’s sustainability lies in building local capacity — ensuring that communities retain access to essential care even as crises evolve.