A delegation from NEPAD met with senior government officials last week.

A visiting delegation from the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), led by Prof. Nzobz Mboya has outlined three documents that are required of Cameroon as prerequisite for the effective putting in place of the project to train nurses and midwives at a higher level in Cameroon.

The six-member team held a working session with the Minister Delegate in the Ministry of External Relations in charge of Relations with the Commonwealth, Joseph Dion Ngute on July 25, 2013 in Yaounde. The delegation leader cited the need for a Memorandum of Understanding between government and NEPAD, another between the host university in Cameroon (University of Yaounde I) and that of Stellenbosh in South Africa and the drawing up of a curriculum that would run for three years as some of the pressing documents.

The nursing and midwifery training project, he explained, was NEPAD's vision, to initially run through five institutions of learning across five countries in Africa, but Heads of State meeting in an Economic Community for Central African States (ECCAS) summit scaled it down to three; Gabon, Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon.

Among the three countries, a meeting to well plan on the project held with Gabon, DR Congo and NEPAD pledging financial support worth FCFA 1 million USD (approximately FCFA 496.9 million) and 1.5 million USD (approximately FCFA 745.4 million) respectively for the effective implementation of the project. NEPAD, Prof. Nzobz Mboya said, was still waiting to hear from Cameroon. He however, said they were happy at the level of collaboration of the country and pleased to scale up quality health care in the country, especially primary health care delivery.

Joseph Dion Ngute said there was no important issue in the rural areas like improving primary health care and Cameroon needed more competent and well trained nurses and midwives. Cameroon, he said, was a strong partner of NEPAD and was willing to support development endeavours. He promised to report to hierarchy all worries tabled for the effective start of the institution.

The execution of the project in the three countries requires the mobilisation of 2.77 million USD (approximately FCFA 1.3 billion) with a gap of 1.3 million USD (approximately 646 million) now. The first working visit between NEPAD and Cameroon held in October 9 to 12, 2013. The project requires the training of nurses and midwives in the master's degree level.