8 Ways USAID’s Maternal and Child Survival Efforts Build Self-Reliance
Map shows how we’ve worked to strengthen countries’ health systems
In countries around the world, USAID works to strengthen health systems to enable their governments to plan, fund and manage their own efforts to improve the health of mothers and their children.
Our support is yielding immediate returns in the form of improved health services and health outcomes — and this work will one day lead to a future when foreign assistance is no longer needed.
You can find even more examples of progress in the 2018 Acting on the Call report.
NIGERIA: USAID helped four laboratories to achieve international accreditation for quality assurance testing of medicines, which means many maternal and child health drugs no longer need to be sent abroad for testing.
GHANA: USAID supports the Ghana Health Service in the transition to a digital health record system, which will enable them to better track patient cases and more efficiently manage data.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO (DRC): Following the 2017 Acting on the Call event, the DRC Government held a workshop on reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health, during which the prime minister announced his government would subsidize access to health care for pregnant women and children under age 5 in Kinshasa.
UGANDA: USAID supported local councils in assessing districts’ financial performance, which increased locally raised health funds by 52 percent from 2012 to 2017.
TANZANIA: USAID established surveillance and response teams in 131 public, private and faith-based health facilities to examine the causes of maternal and newborn deaths, which led to a 20 percent drop in deaths in one year.
KENYA: USAID standardized the health worker training process to strengthen their skills and improve efficiencies, which has contributed to a 30 percent cost savings.
INDIA: Since 2012, 41 percent of USAID-supported districts have transitioned from “poor” performing to “good”, four times the national rate of improvement, and now at the request of the government, USAID is transitioning support to other poor-performing districts.
INDONESIA: After improvements in maternal and child health indicators in USAID districts, the Ministry of Health directed maternal and child health priority districts to use local resources to replicate USAID’s approaches. USAID developed standard operating procedures and budget implications to facilitate this scale-up.
About the Author
Camille Ray works on communications in USAID’s Office of Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition.
