USAID visited GAIA in March in its offices in Blantyre, Malawi. The delegation consisted of Agreement Officers, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialists, and the Division Chief of HIV/AIDS. During the three-day visit, USAID and GAIA discussed the current five-year cooperative agreement, which focuses on leveraging local capacity to sustainably strengthen health service delivery in Malawi. 

USAID’s continued support of GAIA’s programming in Malawi is building long-term health infrastructure by funding the next generation of frontline health workers through nursing scholarships and fellowships. Since 2021, with support from USAID, GAIA has awarded scholarships to 292 Malawian scholars pursuing degrees in nursing and midwifery, and deployed 205 nurse fellows at high burden medical facilities across nine districts.  

During the visit, USAID met with current scholars at the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHeS). Students and staff at KUHeS expressed their gratitude to USAID’s support through GAIA, without which they would not be able to pay tuition and their dream of becoming nurses would not be achieved. 

USAID also met with district leaders at the Chikwawa District Health Office (DHO), where USAID-funded nurse fellows are also based. The district leadership emphasized the importance of the human resources information system (iHRIS) that is being supported under the cooperative agreement, and its use at the DHO for tracking human resources. 

Pictured above: USAID Team meeting with KUHeS Kameza Scholars