MOMENTUM Integrated Health Resilience engages communities to oversee and improve maternal and newborn health services; address barriers to adopting care-seeking and healthy behaviors; and improve water, sanitation, and hygiene services. Through social accountability approaches, such as CARE’s Community Score Card, we bring together community leaders and service providers to identify challenges, generate and implement solutions, and monitor the effectiveness of those solutions.

Many gaps exist in Sudan’s health system. Among them are limited maternal, newborn, and child health services due to lack of human resources, stockouts of essential drugs and equipment, limited quality improvement processes, and poor data quality and analysis. MOMENTUM works to manage and improve the quality of maternal and newborn care at the state and local levels in South Kordofan. We also work with health workers, including midwives and community health workers, to strengthen their capacity to deliver high-quality care through clinical mentoring and on-the-job competency-based training during routine supervision visits. Providers are trained to identify danger signs in pregnancy and make referrals for emergency obstetric and newborn care and other essential services.

Underlying norms, cultural beliefs, and practices in Sudan inhibit women’s health-seeking behaviors and promote risky practices, such as giving birth at home, low adoption of breastfeeding, and early marriage and childbearing. MOMENTUM Integrated Health Resilience engages communities in reflective dialogues and other activities to change harmful attitudes and social norms that keep individuals and families from adopting healthy behaviors and seeking health care. At the same time, MOMENTUM works with health providers to adopt attitudes that encourage respectful, client-centered care.