Midwives educated to international standards could avert over 80% of all maternal deaths, stillbirths, and neonatal deaths and 50 other outcomes. However, midwifery education and training in low- and middle-income countries is under-invested with wide variations in content and duration and mostly fails to meet international standards.

Our goal at the Center is to raise the quality of midwifery education and training across the globe by strengthening global curricula to ensure that they align with required competencies and encompass the latest scientific evidence and WHO recommendations as well as developing standardized assessment and accreditation tools for training facilities, trainers and graduates.

To that end, the Center has convened the Alliance to Improve Midwifery Education (AIME), a global alliance to improve quality sexual reproductive maternal newborn child adolescent health (SRMNCAH) services by prioritizing training, education and professionalization of midwives. Founding partners of AIME include: UNFPA, WHO, UNICEF, ICM, LSTM, Jhpiego, USAID Momentum, Johnson & Johnson Foundation, and Laerdal Global Health.

Working with a consortium of partners including national governments and institutions, AIME is developing tools and knowledge products, carrying out cross-country research, and facilitating learning along three points in the midwifery education pathway:

• Preservice and in-service education for midwives, auxiliary midwives and nurses – to strengthen the quality of midwifery education through standardized competency-based curriculum and training of midwifery educators, including advocacy training to create enabling environments for midwives to thrive

• Preceptorships – to support newly qualified midwives in their transition to the workforce that include comprehensive training for preceptors and rotations for new midwives through all midwifery areas

• Licensing and Relicensing – to improve policies and regulations for accreditation and licensing and provide opportunities for continuing professional development and skills expansion