MCHIP Project close-out event: Lessons learned and the way forward
By Elizabeth Romanoff Silva on July 3, 2014
Last Thursday, June 26th marked the end of USAID’s flagship Maternal and Child Health Integrated Program (MCHIP) with the conference, “Critical Concepts for Ending Preventable Child and Maternal Deaths.” The event in Washington DC highlighted program learning and recommendations on scale, quality, and community from the six-year USAID project. The event was attended by more than 400 development practitioners from many countries, including 23 health ministers from USAID-supported countries. Highlights from the conference included an overview of MCHIP’s achievements and lasting impact by Project Director Koki Agarwal and a panel discussion between five African Health Ministers about acting on preventable child and maternal deaths.
As a development practitioner working on the USAID ASSIST Project, a health systems improvement project which focuses on improving the quality of services in USAID-supported countries, the conference’s theme of ‘quality’ resonated strongly with me. Barbara Rawlins described the importance of measuring the quality of antenatal care and labor and delivery services and shared impressive results from an MCHIP assessment of six countries in East and Southern Africa. Hillary Chguvare shared results from implementing the Standards-Based Management and Recognition approach to improving the quality of MNCH services in Zimbabwe, and Veronica Reis gave an engaging presentation about how respectful maternity care in Mozambique has been integral to improving the quality of services offered.
Disrespect and abuse of women and girls during maternity care is a direct effect of gender inequities, and the presentation by Ms. Reis highlighted the importance and the impact of implementing a rights-based approach that incorporates respect and addressing the specific needs of pregnant women and girls has on improving health outcomes.
Our USAID ASSIST team uses a quality improvement and people-centered approach to integrate gender into our programs by analyzing the different needs of women, men, girls, and boys and proposing interventions which respond to their unique needs. The ASSIST maternal, newborn and child health team supports governments and partners to adapt improvement approaches to improve, scale up, and sustain high-impact, evidence-based health care for leading causes of maternal, newborn, and child mortality.
We work to identify barriers to access and retention that women and girls face to maternal and reproductive health services, and involve male partners in couples’ counseling and promote their participation at clinic visits – at the female client’s discretion – to improve health outcomes for mother-baby pairs, provide male partners with health services, test them for HIV, and enroll them in care if they test positive. Male health promotion and involvement has lasting benefits for maternal, newborn, and child health.
MCHIP’s contributions to improving maternal, newborn and child health in more than 50 countries is feat to be celebrated, as USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah aptly pointed out at the conference, and has undoubtedly had a lasting impact on the millions of people whose lives were improved by the family planning, immunizations, nutrition, malaria, HIV/AIDS and maternal, newborn, and child health programs that MCHIP supported over the past six years. The event also offered a glimpse at the work ahead that the follow-on to the MCHIP project – the Maternal and Child Survival Program – will accomplish, with the goal to ensure that the women, newborns, and children most in need have equitable access to quality health care services. We at USAID ASSIST look forward to continuing our collaboration with the exciting MCH work ahead.
View a collection of presentations and resources from the MCHIP close-out event.