The Women's Right to Life and Health project aimed to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality in Bangladesh through provision of comprehensive emergency obstetric care (EmOC) in the country's district and sub-district hospitals. Human resources development was one of the project's major activities. This paper describes the project in 2000-2004 and lessons learned. Project documents, the training database, reports and training protocols were reviewed. Medical officers, nurses, facility managers and laboratory technicians received training in the country's eight medical college hospitals, using nationally accepted curricula. A 17-week competency-based training course for teams of medical officers and nurses was introduced in 2003. At baseline in 1999, only three sub-district hospitals were providing comprehensive EmOC and 33 basic EmOC, mostly due to lack of trained staff and necessary equipment. In 2004, 105 of the 120 sub-district hospitals had become functional for EmOC, 70 with comprehensive EmOC and 35 with basic EmOC, while 53 of 59 of the district hospitals were providing comprehensive EmOC compared to 35 in 1999. The scaling up of competency-based training, innovative incentives to retain trained staff, evidence-based protocols to standardise practice and improve quality of care and the continuing involvement of key stakeholders, especially trainers, will all be needed to reach training targets in future.