Chantale Al-Lakis, Epidemiologist at KIT Institute, sent us this dispatch from Abidjan. She was recently in the port city with other KIT advisors (below) to deliver a workshop on the World Bank and Global Financing Facility-funded project on Service Delivery Redesign for Maternal and Neonatal Health in Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, DRC, Niger, and Pakistan.

Comprehensive services to all women within 30 minutes…

I was recently in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, for a three-day workshop on Service Delivery Redesign (SDR) for Maternal and Neonatal Health. The goal of this redesign is to improve the access to and quality of comprehensive obstetric and newborn services to all women within 30 minutes of the place where they give birth.

KIT and its partners organized this workshop with the aim to discuss strategies on reducing maternal and neonatal mortality. We focused on three approaches:

1. Speaking a common language with policy makers and creating a common understanding of SDR principles and methods;
2. Fostering a shift in mindset towards people centred approaches to health system improvement, and;
3. Interpreting findings from the formative research phase of SDR programs to prepare for implementation through projects by the World Bank (WB) and Global Financing Facility (GFF).

The workshop was bustling with 62 participants, including representatives from Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and WB, GFF and KIT consortium members. 

This high-energy workshop highlighted the necessity for systemic health reforms. They are needed to overcome the lack of progress in service coverage and the high expenses borne by women. Formative research also emphasised the importance of understanding user preferences and improving health service accessibility and quality.

The secret to improving maternal and newborn health

Workshops like these, which bring together experts and decision makers to improve health outcomes and include users’ perspectives, are a recipe for success. They endorse the quality of services to improve access and quality of maternal and newborn health.

The secret to improving maternal and newborn health is collaboration. Through our formative research, by incorporating the voices of a diverse group of experts, decision-makers, and most importantly, the very people who use these health services, we are paving the way to improvement. This inclusive approach enhances the quality of care and makes it more accessible to those who need it most.