MomConnect – Improving the Health of Mothers and Newborns at National Scale

MomConnect is a National Department of Health program in South Africa that has used mobile phones to deliver stage-based maternal and child health messages and to provide helpdesk services to over 1.8M women. It is complemented by NurseConnect, which provides psycho-social support, a helpdesk, and training to 20,000 nurses. Both are integrated into existing health data systems so that administrators can identify and respond to service delivery gaps. MomConnect’s proven demand and the success of the program at reducing barriers to access to care has driven demand for similar programs across Africa, customized to local needs, and has been launched in Nigeria and Uganda. Regional scaling is held back however by concerns around sustainability. To improve the program’s overall value proposition, we are developing and testing with GCC public-private partnerships that can generate revenue to cover running costs, and developing an M&E framework to better track the program's health impact.