On September 25, 2020, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) announced its sixth and final addition to the multi-award MOMENTUM project—Moving Integrated, Quality Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health and Family Planning and Reproductive Health Services to Scale—to accelerate reductions in maternal, newborn, and child mortality and morbidity in USAID partner countries.

The $40 million award, currently known as MOMENTUM Safe Surgeries in Family Planning and Obstetrics, was given to EngenderHealth and will focus on strengthening surgical safety in maternal health care and voluntary family planning programs by promoting evidence-based approaches and testing new innovations. EngenderHealth will lead the project with three partners: IntraHealth International, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the Johns Hopkins Center for Communications Programs.

The program aims to support the overall health and well-being of women and their families by preventing conditions and complications that could lead to or occur as a result of surgery. In its announcement, USAID noted that the award will promote awareness of, equitable access to, and high quality of care for voluntary and consented safe surgeries, including Caesarean delivery, fistula repair, childbirth-related hysterectomy, long-acting reversible contraception, and permanent family planning methods.

Learn more about MOMENTUM’s work in safe surgical care.