Connecting for innovation and equity in global health
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Maternity Matters: Leveraging digital solutions at scale to deliver quality health care within UHC | March 3, 2021
March 3, 2021 @ 8:00 am - 9:00 am
Over the past 18 months, MSD for Mothers and Devex have engaged in a partnership — Maternity Matters: Funding the future — to explore how donor funding is leveraging the private sector to meet needs related to reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health, or RMNCAH, and how that collaboration can help bridge the $33 billion annual financing gap in providing associated services, which could prevent the deaths of an estimated 24 million to 38 million women, children, and adolescents by 2030.
One area of investment that stakeholders have identified as key for bridging the RMNCAH gap is data and digital technology, which has further been brought to the fore by the challenge of meeting the needs of women, children, and adolescents as the COVID-19 pandemic continues across the globe. Many donors have shared examples of digital investments that have sought to address these challenges and shown demonstrable impact but often failed to scale or be adopted as best practices.
On March 3, Devex, in partnership with MSD for Mothers and the Bay Area Global Health Alliance, convened a virtual roundtable on identifying the current barriers to accelerating the implementation of digital innovations for maternal health in low- and middle-income countries, as well as potential solutions for better efficiency in collaboration within the space.
As an ecosystem event of Prescription for Progress, the roundtable brought together key stakeholders, including global multilateral agencies, technology companies, and governments, to discuss some of these barriers. Together, we explored the role of governments in creating enabling environments but also ensuring projects achieve the scale needed to reach underserved mothers.