Detailed Mechanism Funding and Narrative

Years of mechanism: 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2017

Details for Mechanism ID: 13101
Country/Region: Malawi
Year: 2013
Main Partner: University Research Corporation, LLC
Main Partner Program: NA
Organizational Type: Private Contractor
Funding Agency: USAID
Total Funding: $225,000

The Health Care Improvement (HCI) project has been collaborating with the Ministry of Gender, Children and Community Development (MoGCCD) and key stakeholders in Malawi since 2011. The project's key objective is to build consensus on the need for Quality Improvement (QI) and Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) service standards and to collaborate to build a community of practice. This activity is aligned with the Malawi PFIPs Impact Mitigation goal that identified the development, piloting, finalization and implementation of national quality improvement standards for OVC programs as critical to addressing childrens issues in Malawi.

This activity focuses on building the capacity of MoGCCD officers to be QI champions and provides targeted technical assistance to build MoGCCDs capacity to plan, coordinate and provide leadership for QI OVC activities in Malawi. By anchoring the QI initiative under the ambit of the MoGCCD and working through existing decentralized structures at the district level, the HCI project ensures that all efforts are anchored within the GOM thus achieving cost efficiency and sustainability.

HCI has built the capacities of QI coaches; provided technical input in the participatory development of draft service standards across the range of OVC program areas (ie. education, protection, shelter and care, economic strengthening etc) and developed draft service standards. FY12 activities will focus on finalizing the service standards, disseminating and communicating the standards with the districts, providing on-going coaching in QI, promoting best practices and gathering evidence on the draft standards to support their finalization, and developing a scale up strategy to disseminate the OVC service standards and QI methods widely across Malawi.

Funding for Care: Orphans and Vulnerable Children (HKID): $225,000

The URC/HC activity is aligned with PEPFAR's goal of working with the GOM to build the capacity of service providers to deliver high quality critical services to orphans and vulnerable children in ways that reduce their vulnerability and ensure that communities are engaged in the coordination of service delivery and employ strategies for ensuring continuum of care for children infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.

By working through the MoGCCD and community structures to draft and pilot OVC service standards and community partners, this activity will collect evidence on the extent to which OVC well-being is improved and facilitate finalization and implementation of the standards. To date, HCI has built consensus on the importance of developing a system to improve and manage quality of services, developed draft standards and provided technical support to four international organizations. In addition, HCI has identified five local non-governmental organizations (LNGOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs) to lead the piloting of the draft OVC service standards. A main challenge faced during implementation has been the slow buy-in of some organizations due to the recent restructuring of the Child Welfare Department at the MoGCCD. The establishment of a newly strengthened Child Protection Technical Working Group (TWG) will address OVC issues with succinct and targeted direction provided by the MoGCCD to ensure roll out and buy-in across all stakeholders.

Cross Cutting Budget Categories and Known Amounts Total: $130,572
Economic Strengthening $32,143
Education $32,143
Food and Nutrition: Commodities $32,143
Gender: Gender Based Violence (GBV) $34,143