This February, the Centre for Maternal and Newborn Health (CMNH) will begin fieldwork in Zimbabwe which will contribute to the Mid-Term Report in the country’s evaluation of the Health Transition Fund (HTF).
CMNH was successful in winning the contract to evaluate the success of the HTF programme in 2013, and the upcoming fieldwork comprises a health facility survey of 170 facilities across the whole country.
“The HTF evaluation represents a key part of our expanding portfolio of Technical Assistance work,” says Prof. Nynke van Den Broek, Head of CMNH. “We are working in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare and have developed a new framework for the evaluation. The piece of work is important to us as we continue to design, implement and measure innovative healthcare packages in our mission to reduce maternal and new-born mortality and morbidity.”
Zimbabwe announced the HTF in 2011 to revitalise the healthcare system in order to tackle the country’s high maternal and neonatal death rates. It is funded by UNICEF and other international donors.
CMNH are conducting an independent evaluation covering the period from January 2012 to December 2015 during which the HTF was implemented within the context of the Zimbabwe National Health Strategy (2009-2013).
According to the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare in Zimbabwe one in three children are stunted, an estimated 100 children are dying every day due to easily preventable diseases, while at least eight women die every day to pregnancy related complications. The HTF aims to eliminate user fees for women and children and ultimately save more than 30,000 lives among children under five and pregnant women.
The thematic areas that are being addressed by the evaluation include: maternal, child, newborn and nutrition; medical products, vaccines and technologies (medicines and commodities); human resource for health (health worker management, training and retention scheme); health policy, planning and finance (Health Service Fund Scheme and Research).