The challenge
India accounts for over 8% of global maternal mortality and has the second highest number of deaths of children under 5 in the world. While the proportion of institutional deliveries has improved, only 30% of pregnant women receive complete antenatal coverage.
Infant and under-5 mortality and stunting rates are much higher among girls due to the preferential treatment for boys.
Poor health system accountability, data governance issues, and gender inequity all contribute to the problem. Addressing these issues requires increased access to quality primary health care services among women and girls, including comprehensive antenatal care for pregnant women.
The solution
ARMMAN optimizes existing infrastructure — extensive mobile phone ownership/access among women, and over a million government health workers — to integrate, augment and scale technological innovations for improved maternal and child health outcomes.
ARMMAN employs a unique “tech plus touch” model to strengthen India’s primary healthcare system. Their Shakti initiative provides comprehensive mobile health solutions to inform and empower pregnant women and mothers to adopt better health behaviors and seek timely care, while also enabling health workers to swiftly detect, manage, and refer high-risk conditions.
ARMMAN has achieved the following in the first year of the Co-Impact grant
People-level outcomes
16.9 million women and their children in 27 states reached through the Kilkari mobile outreach program.
120,700 frontline health workers in 17 states across India trained through Mobile Academy to date.
Systems-level outcomes
Kilkari and Mobile Academy programs included in the budget plans of three and four states respectively.
Protocols for high-risk pregnancy management increated and adopted as policy in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh states.
Health data quality in the government database has improved by between 10% and 20% across 18 states.
An estimated $250 million in government funding will be mobilized to scale and implement the programs nationwide over the next 4 years.
Organisation-level outcomes
Made progress towards becoming a gender-balanced organization, with women accounting for 48% of the leadership team, 50% of the core team, and 38% of the board.
Exceeded one-year targets to become a financially resilient organization, with 78% of funding secured from multi-year grants and three-month reserves for operating expenses.
https://co-impact.app.box.com/s/sw1i6lidyq3vsj3ly7fbstjfw34a8a7c/file/1848393287726
