Kenya
We work with the national Government of Kenya, county governments, and local organizations to strengthen health care for Kenyans.
MOMENTUM is partnering with nearly 40 countries to accelerate progress and advance USAID’s work to save lives and improve health outcomes for women, children, families, and communities in all of their diversity. MOMENTUM brings together specialized technical and country expertise through six distinct yet integrated awards with the depth and breadth of experience to spur reductions in maternal, newborn, and child mortality and morbidity.
Two MOMENTUM projects—Country and Global Leadership and Routine Immunization Transformation and Equity—are working with the Government of Kenya and its public health workers to increase COVID-19 vaccination rates and vaccinate Kenyans against preventable diseases. We collaborate with the Government of Kenya and local partners to advance the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, focusing on strengthening local organizations’ and governments’ capacity and commitment to improve the health of all Kenyans.
Strengthening COVID-19 Immunization in Kenya
MOMENTUM Routine Immunization Transformation and Equity partners with the Kenyan Ministry of Health at the national level to prepare for, implement, and evaluate the rollout of COVID-19 vaccination programs to ensure effective management of vaccine service delivery. This effort has included helping allocate Kenya’s supply of vaccines and monitoring and assisting with distribution. Currently, MOMENTUM supports the National Vaccines and Immunization Program (NVIP) to develop training materials on COVID-19 vaccination microplanning so that vaccines can reach every community. The project is also providing technical support to NVIP to plan and implement mass vaccination campaigns and evaluate their performance.
MOMENTUM Routine Immunization Transformation and Equity extended its partnership with the Ministry of Health to county-level distribution of vaccines in Homa Bay and Vihiga counties. We have partnered with county leaders to plan and coordinate technical working group meetings and provide technical assistance—including operational guidance for county task forces—to help them reach priority populations with the vaccine. We also supported the efforts of local partners, such as Ageing Concern Foundation, to promote access to and uptake of COVID-19 vaccinations among priority populations. Lastly, MOMENTUM provided technical guidance to partners to support the use of evidence in decision-making.
Partnering to Reach More Young People With Health Care
Thirty-eight percent of Kenyans are under age 15. MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership is supporting Youth for Sustainable Development (Machakos chapter), a Kenyan youth-led organization, to develop gender-transformative and age-appropriate health interventions for young people. MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership also collaborates with Nawiri, a USAID-funded food security project, in Samburu and Turkana counties, to integrate adolescent health into their health programs and assess adolescent health care at the county level.
Recently, MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership partnered with Kenya’s National Council for Population and Development to raise awareness of the sexual and reproductive health needs of adolescents; increase budget allocations for contraceptive commodities; and support interventions in population, environment, and development to improve the health and well-being of Kenyan youth. MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership has also trained health workers and supported steering committee meetings in Homa Bay and Vihiga counties focused on health services for adolescents.
Learn how we harness the power of youth voices to make health systems more responsive to the needs of young people.
Supporting Routine Immunization Services
Although the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimated that nearly 91 percent of Kenyan children were fully vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DTP) in 2021, many children still miss out on immunizations against vaccine-preventable diseases.2 MOMENTUM Routine Immunization Transformation and Equity works with the Ministry of Health and local stakeholders in Homa Bay and Vihiga counties to support routine immunization so that Kenyans receive lifesaving vaccines. We also support planning so that services reach all communities, strengthening vaccine supply, engaging communities in vaccination, using data for decision-making, and providing supportive supervision and mentorship.
Learn how we supported health workers and community volunteers in Western Kenya to improve routine immunization rates.
Prioritizing Respectful and Person-Centered Care
Maternal mortality in Kenya is high: in 2017, 5,000 Kenyan mothers died of pregnancy-related causes.3 MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership is working with the Kenyan Government and other stakeholders to implement strategies and tools to end preventable maternal mortality and track maternal deaths.
We are also collaborating with the WHO, UNICEF, and the Ministry of Health to improve the quality of care for mothers and children. MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership is supporting the Ministry of Health’s Department of Family Health and Department of Quality and Standards to adopt WHO-recommended quality-of-care standards for small and sick newborns and pediatrics, including nutrition standards. Once adopted, MOMENTUM will provide technical and financial assistance to the Ministry of Health to implement the standards in the primary health care system.
We are also working with the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders to conduct a landscape analysis of respectful maternity care implementation, using evidence from qualitative research to identify drivers of disrespect and abuse and co-designing targeted interventions. Learnings from this process will inform a review of the national package for training health workers and will be used for advocacy with policymakers.
Expanding Access to Voluntary Family Planning
MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership works with Jacaranda Health, a Kenyan nongovernmental organization, to better tailor their text messaging program to provide mothers with information about postpartum family planning. MOMENTUM is also partnering with the Government of Kenya to increase demand for and access to the hormonal intrauterine device (IUD) as part of the broader mix of long-acting reversible contraceptives.
MOMENTUM is also working with the Midwives Association of Kenya (MAK) to build their technical and organizational capacity to support family planning providers at public health facilities on offering the hormonal IUD to their clients.
In addition, MOMENTUM supports MAK to implement Kenya’s recently revised National Family Planning Standards for Health Care Facilities. We are coaching MAK to work with reproductive health coordinators to mentor quality improvement teams at facilities to offer more respectful and person-centered counseling and services. MOMENTUM has also designed an implementation research study to understand how to incorporate regular client feedback to prioritize person-centered care in family planning.
Check out our research on expanding hormonal IUD access in Kenya and Zambia.
Strengthening the Capacity of Health Systems and Health Workers
From April 2021 to June 2022, MOMENTUM Routine Immunization Transformation and Equity worked in Kakamega, Nairobi, and Trans-Nzoia counties to provide health workers with frequently updated information about COVID-19 vaccines, and strengthened their ability to collect, report, manage, and use data to make decisions in real-time. We also partnered with USAID’s Kenya Health Partnerships for Quality Services (KHPQS) project to strengthen their capacity to deliver COVID-19 vaccines by providing training on technical topics related to immunization, supporting vaccine administration trainings for health workers and vaccine outreach activities, and facilitating learning between the organizations that are part of KHPQS.
In Homa Bay and Vihiga counties, MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership is working with the Ministry of Health to strengthen the capacity of health systems to improve data use and scale up best practices for the health of mothers and children. We provide technical assistance to County Health Management Teams to plan, budget, and implement high-impact health interventions. We are also helping them to establish robust supply chains for essential commodities, county-led and -owned quality improvement systems and teams, and the infrastructure for continuous health worker training. At the community level, MOMENTUM is supporting the Ministry of Health to roll out the Community Scorecard, an approach aimed at empowering communities to engage with and promote accountability of the health system.
Learn how we worked with local partners and Kenya’s government to vaccinate people against COVID-19.
Our Achievements in Kenya
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88,882 COVID-19 vaccines administered
From October 2021 to September 2022, MOMENTUM supported healthcare workers to administer 88,882 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
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20% to 4% of children under-vaccinated
With MOMENTUM support, the share of children who did not complete the three-dose DTP vaccine series dropped from 20 to 4 percent between late 2021 and mid-2022.
MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership: Jhpiego, Save the Children, PACT, Kenya Ministry of Health Department of Family Health and Department of Quality, Standards, and Regulations, Jacaranda Health, Youth for Sustainable Development (Machakos Chapter), Midwifery Association of Kenya, National Council for Population and Development
MOMENTUM Routine Immunization Transformation and Equity: JSI Research and Training Institute, Inc., PATH, Kenya Ministry of Health, Expanded Programme on Immunization, Kenya Red Cross, Kenya Health Partnerships for Quality Services, Ageing Concern Foundation
Interested in partnering with us or learning more about our work in Kenya? Contact us here or check out our regional reference brief.
Learn more about USAID’s programs in Kenya.
References
- Kaneda, Toshiko, Charlotte Greenbaum, and Carl Haub. 2021 World Population Data Sheet. Washington, DC: Population Reference Bureau. 2021. https://interactives.prb.org/2021-wpds/.
- World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Kenya: WHO and UNICEF Estimates of Immunization Coverage. July 6, 2021. https://data.unicef.org/app/uploads/2022/07/ken.pdf
- WHO, UNICEF, United Nations Population Fund, World Bank Group, and the United Nations Population Division. “Maternal mortality: levels and trends 2000 to 2017.” Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, 2019. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241516488
Last updated December 2023.