Africa

By Narcisse Naia Embeke, Management Sciences for Health Credit: Warren Zelman. I grew up in a village in northwestern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and although I’m now a doctor and live in Kinshasa, I remember those days well. I know what it’s like to live 23 kilometers from the nearest...

Written by Amanda Makulec and Tariq Azim, JSI To understand where, when, and what health services are provided within a health system, quality data must be available. In a country as large as Ethiopia—with 94 million people—developing and implementing systems for capturing quality data can be a...

By Dr. Leslie Mancuso, President and CEO, Jhpiego Photo by MNCH Services Project Pakistan Initiation of family planning immediately after birth is both efficient for health systems and easier for women since few women in low-resource settings are able to return to a facility for further care. Every...

By Andrew Schroeder, Direct Relief [This blog was originally appeared on the Direct Relief site.] Celebrating World Health Worker Week (April 5 -11, 2015), a new story map from Esri, The Earth Institute at Columbia, and Direct Relief, aims to raise support and awareness for the life changing...

By Annie Geraghty, Accenture Development Partnerships George Ngamia has been selected by his clan as a C ommunity Health Worker (CHW) in Kenya’s Samburu District. The Samburu lead a semi-nomadic lifestyle in a remote area of northern Kenya with little to no access to the formal healthcare system...

By Melissa Wanda, Family Care International, Kenya In a village in rural Kenya, a woman in labor travels miles along rutted dirt roads to get to the nearest health center. She wants to give herself and her baby the greatest possible chance of surviving childbirth and returning home to begin new and...

By Cindil Redick, One Million Community Health Workers Campaign CONARKY, Guinea – How many community health workers (CHWs) are there? What are community health workers’ tasks? How can we more efficiently integrate CHWs into national health systems? Global public health leaders widely acknowledge...

By Annette C. Sheckler, Management Sciences for Health Ayelew Adinew was working as a pharmacist in a large public hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He looked around and saw that the 100-year old pharmaceutical system was broken. There was no transparent and accountable system for providing the...

By: Tunde Ajidagba, Women Deliver Young Leader, Nigeria In the past 15 years, there has been substantial achievement toward reaching Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4 and 5, which seek to reduce child mortality and improve maternal health. Since 1990, the baseline year for the MDGs, child and...

By Anne Pfitzer, Jhpiego “If I were to speak to a matrone like me before she goes for training, I would tell her to really pay attention, not to be afraid to ask all the questions she might have and when it comes to practicing [on models first, then clients], to really master the steps. The...