The governments of Mali, Senegal, and Niger rely on private schools to help overcome critical health worker shortages in rural and underserved areas, but these private schools lack accreditation, utilize outdated curricula and learning approaches, have inadequate teaching capacity, and do not cater to the needs of marginalized populations. As such, these underperforming schools graduate nurses who are poorly prepared to provide essential health services, disproportionately impacting the most vulnerable patients, such as mothers and children. COVID-19 has exacerbated this challenge and threatens to further worsen regional health outcomes.

Rural populations in Mali, Senegal, and Niger suffer from a lack of qualified nurses. Private schools are poised to address this need but lack capacity. Over 5 years the program is strengthening 12 rural, private schools’ ability to sustainably increase the number of qualified nurses ready to serve marginalized populations. Partnering with the public sector, the program supports schools to achieve this through accreditation, competency-based curricula, effective learning approaches, and graduating students from underserved areas. The program further addresses high attrition rates of health schools by integrating DEI practices into the schools’ processes, since the large proportion of dropouts are made up of low-income students, female students and students with disabilities.