Innovating for Maternal and Child Health in Africa

Innovating for Maternal and Child Health in Africa
 
Baby being weighed on a scale 
Panos
Region of focus: Sub-Saharan Africa  –
targeting Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Sudan, and Tanzania

Duration: 2014 – 2020

Funding: CA$36 million
Program focus

The Innovating for Maternal and Child Health in Africa program seeks to improve maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) outcomes by strengthening health systems to become more equitable, using primary health care as an entry point. Two inter-related program components, Implementation Research Teams and Health Policy and Research Organizations, have been designed to achieve the goals of the program.

The challenge

Approximately 800 women die every day from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Others suffer complications leading to disabilities that limit their quality of life and that of their surviving children. Almost 7 million children die worldwide before reaching their fifth birthday; nearly half of these deaths occur within the first month of life. About 99% of preventable maternal, newborn, and child deaths and disabilities occur in low- and middle-income countries. Children in sub-Saharan Africa are 16 times more likely to die before the age of five than those in developed regions. Weakened health systems limit healthcare access and delivery of services to mothers and children, which are essential to improving maternal and child health outcomes.

While several decades of research have contributed to reductions in maternal, newborn, and child deaths globally, critical healthcare knowledge gaps remain. The Innovating for Maternal and Child Health Africa program intends to reduce this gap.

The program

Approximately 20 research teams, composed of leading African and Canadian researchers and African decision-makers, will develop practical solutions to health system challenges. The aim is to generate new knowledge about how interventions work, for whom, and under what conditions. Researchers will also explore how such interventions are implemented, and how they can be scaled up to improve health equity for women and children. 

These solutions will focus on four priority research areas: 
  • high-impact community based interventions: implementing and evaluating technologies and services that directly affect maternal, newborn, and child health, by working through the communities they live in
  • quality facility based interventions: ensuring that high-quality health care is delivered in clinics and hospitals
  • policy environments to improve health services and outcomes: working with policymakers and decision-makers to help make the best health policy decisions, and
  • human resources: identifying how nurses, doctors, and other health professionals can better deliver the care that is needed.
Each team will work closely with two health policy and research organizations, one based in East Africa and the other based in West Africa. These organizations will promote the uptake of research findings to influence national and regional policies and practices in the targeted countries by:
Pregnant women wait for prenatal consultations at the Elmina Urban hospital in Elmina, Ghana
Olivier Asselin
  • building a body of knowledge and national ownership of the research
  • facilitating mutual learning amongst researchers, decision-makers and communities who believe in improving maternal, newborn, and child health
  • strengthening individual and institutional capacities to do research and apply research findings in policy and practice.
Expected outcomes

The Innovating for Maternal and Child Health in Africa program reflects Canada’s top priorities for development, and continued commitment to improving the health of mothers, newborns, and children and reducing the number of preventable deaths. The program will:
  • address critical knowledge gaps and increase awareness among policy decision-makers about affordable, feasible, and scalable primary healthcare interventions to improve maternal and child health delivery and outcomes
  • build individual and institutional capacity for gender-sensitive health systems and solution-oriented research, and enhance the uptake of relevant and timely research that informs policy and practice
  • strengthen collaborations between Canadian and African researchers, working in partnership with African decision-makers, to implement and scale up high-quality and effective medicines, services, and technologies that improve maternal and child health outcomes. 
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