AFRICA – The United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and Medical Credit Fund, a non-profit organization founded as part of PharmAccess Group, has announced a new collaboration aimed at reducing maternal mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa.
This collaboration will result in the design and implementation of a technical assistance facility for health providers in the region that will serve low-income mothers and their families.
The effort will be aided by the MOMs (Maternal Outcomes Matter) Initiative, a program launched in June 2019 by DFC, MSD for Mothers, Credit Suisse, and USAID to mobilize private capital to stimulate, advance, and scale innovations that promote healthy pregnancy and safe childbirth in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Every year, 200,000 women die in Sub-Saharan Africa from pregnancy-related causes, accounting for more than two-thirds of all maternal deaths worldwide.
Most of these deaths are avoidable with proper care. This new project will allow hundreds of staff members of African health care facilities to receive in-depth technical support to improve health care services.
The new program gives focused attention to maternal, new-born, and child health care (MNCH), by leveraging more than a decade of combined experience from DFC and Medical Credit Fund in developing innovative health system solutions.
The technical assistance center will combine digitally enabled clinical and strategic learning tools with traditional capacity building methods like on-site trainings.
Where applicable, facilities can apply for loans to improve maternal health quality. The collaboration will also help with the implementation of PharmAccess Group’s SafeCare’s online Quality Platform, a standards-based, digital quality improvement platform.
Providers will receive direct guidance and be able to track progress in real time through the online Quality Platform.
Providers will receive direct guidance and be able to track progress in real time through the online Quality Platform.
Following that, the technical assistance facility will be made available to other facilities serving the larger health care community, including public sector health care facilities.
“With this collaboration we can lay the basis of an effective model for sustainable technical assistance programs. By introducing online and offline learning programs we can help health care staff to grow and provide better maternal care to their community,’’ said Nicole Spieker, director quality, CEO of PharmAccess.
Algene Sajery, DFC’s Vice President of the Office of External Affairs and Head of Global Gender Equity Initiatives also had this to say: “DFC is proud to support this groundbreaking technical assistance facility, which will help save the lives of low-income mothers and children throughout Africa and enable the development of healthier, more prosperous communities.”
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