Malawi

We partner with Malawi’s government, private sector, and local organizations to help children and youth access the health care they deserve.

MOMENTUM works with Malawi’s government and local partners across 14 districts to improve access to proven life-saving health interventions for children and to help young people access reproductive health information and services.

Learn more about our programs in Southern Africa

Partnering to Improve Adolescent and Youth Sexual and Reproductive Health

MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership partners with USAID’s Restoring Fisheries for Sustainable Livelihoods in Lake Malawi (REFRESH) project to reach adolescents and youth in the country’s lakeshore districts. Through this partnership, MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership is exploring what factors impact the availability and use of contraception among adolescents and youth in fishing communities. Additionally, MOMENTUM will integrate an intervention for sexual and reproductive health and gender into the ongoing REFRESH fisheries work, creating an innovative population, environment, and development approach to the work.

MOMENTUM Private Healthcare Delivery is also working with the Government of Malawi to reach young married and unmarried people in eight districts with accurate, high-quality sexual and reproductive health information so that they can make informed family planning choices. MOMENTUM is implementing human-centered design approaches to create demand for sexual and reproductive health services among youth; these include video series, radio programs, and communication materials. The project also focuses on training community volunteers and service providers at private facilities to offer adolescent-responsive family planning information and referral services to community members.

Dive into the story of Eliza, a 25-year-old youth mobilizer who helps people in her lakeshore community access voluntary, integrated family planning services.

Emma Beck/PSI

Improving Access to Lifesaving Services for Children

Malawi has made significant progress in improving child wellbeing over the past few decades, but 63 percent of Malawian children still live in poverty, making it harder for them to access the health care they need.1,2 MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership is working with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Malawi’s Ministry of Health to promote Integrated Community Case Management—a proven, equity-focused strategy for delivering key child health interventions to hard-to-reach communities—across the country to improve access to lifesaving treatments for malaria, pneumonia, diarrhea, and acute malnutrition.

MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership is also working with Malawi’s Ministry of Health to better understand barriers to effective implementation of Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI), an integrated facility-based strategy developed by the World Health Organization and UNICEF to improve treatment of childhood illness and promote healthy growth. Findings from this work will be combined with similar studies in Ghana and Sierra Leone to advance  global and national recommendations to strengthen IMCI implementation.

Learn more about how MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership partners with community health workers to develop the knowledge and skills they need to counsel families with sick children.

USAID Malawi

Interested in partnering with us or learning more about our work in Malawi? Contact us here or check out our regional reference brief.

Learn more about USAID’s work in Malawi.

References

  1. United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation. Levels & Trends in Child Mortality: Report 2020, Stillbirth and Child Mortality Estimates. New York: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). 2020.
  2. Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (Malawi) and UNICEF. Child Poverty in Malawi. March 2016. https://www.unicef.org/esa/sites/unicef.org.esa/files/2018-09/UNICEF-Malawi-2016-Child-Poverty.PDF

Last updated September 2022.

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