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About Us

Who we are

The Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (Quality of Care Network) is a broad partnership of committed governments, implementation partners and funding agencies working to ensure that every pregnant woman, newborn and the child receives good quality care with equity and dignity. The goals of the Network are to halve maternal and newborn deaths and stillbirths in health facilities by 2022 and to improve patients’ experience of care in participating in health facilities in Network countries.

About us

Goals

1

Halve maternal and newborn mortality in health facilities in Network countries, as well as stillbirths, by 2022

2

Improve the experience of care

Every year 303,000 mothers and 2.7 million newborn infants die annually around the time of childbirth and that many more are affected by preventable illness. 2.6 million babies are stillborn each year. The World Health Organization has identified quality of care for women and children as a priority in addressing preventable maternal and child mortality and states a vision that ‘Every woman, child and adolescent should receive quality care throughout the continuum of their life course and care’. In support to this vision, ten countries supported by WHO, UNICEF and UNFPA, and in collaboration with partners, joined forces and established the Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal Newborn and Child Health, in February 2017. The Network brings global and regional coordination to quality of care, for countries to share their best practices and to catalyze change, through coordinated evidence-based actions and joint learning.

What we do

Under the leadership of Ministries of Health of the participating countries, the Quality of Care Network supports the implementation of national strategies for quality of care in the health sector by using maternal, newborn and child health as a pathfinder and pursuing four strategic objectives:

What we do

Strategic Objectives

Leadership

Build and strengthen national institutions and mechanisms for improving quality of care in the health sector
Action

Accelerate and sustain implementation of quality of care improvements for mothers and newborns
Learning

Facilitate learning, share knowledge and generate evidence on quality of care
Accountability

Develop, strengthen and sustain institutions and mechanisms for accountability for quality of care

The Network provides a platform for countries to ensure that quality of care becomes an integral part of health care delivery; it facilitates intercountry learning, knowledge sharing, and generation of local evidence and best practices.

Quality of Care is integral to Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and critical for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets for reducing maternal and child health. The Quality of Care Network Health supports countries in achieving their targets agreed under the to end preventable maternal, newborn and child deaths, and stillbirths. It supports the objectives of the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health (2016-2030).

Countries and partners work together

Reduce

by

1/2

Quality

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11

Countries

A

Growing

Partnership

What?
How?
Where?
Who?

What?

Halve maternal and newborn deaths and stillbirths by 2022 in the participating countries

How?

By improving quality of care in health facilities, improving experience of care, and engaging communities

Where?

Network countries: Bangladesh, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Uganda

Who?

Ministries of Health in 11 member countries lead apartnership of development organisations, NGOs, private sector, professional associations & universities

Participating Countries

Eleven countries that are already making strides in improving quality of health are leading the Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health: Bangladesh, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, the United Republic of Tanzania, and Uganda. These countries are well-positioned to make rapid progress, as evidenced by a high degree of political will and commitment to support and resource maternal and newborn health services from their governments and, from funding and technical partners, strong, funded commitment and support.

Their Ministries of Health and local partners, with the support of WHO, UNICEF and UNFPA are implementing evidence-based, context-specific policies, strategies and intervention packages, and harvesting implementation ideas to improve the quality of health services.

In addition, 11 other countries are engaging with the Quality of Care Network to learn from the pathfinder countries and work to institutionalise quality of care. These are: Botswana, Cameroon, Chad, DRC, Liberia, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Senegal, South Sudan, Sudan, Bhutan, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Timor-Leste.

How we work together

Government leadership

The governments of the participating countries are leading the Quality of Care Network through their commitment for improving quality of care and adaptation of the Network’ strategic objectives to their country contexts. They are providing national leadership through establishing the necessary governance structures for facilitating quality of care implementation, and are sharing lessons learnt through the national and global learning network.

Partners’ support

This government leadership has led to a growing partnership of development organisations , NGOs, private sector, professional associations and universities to rally around the Quality of Care at the national level. Partners, at the country level, are harmonizing their investment with the national operational plan and working in a coordinated fashion to build national capabilities for strengthening national and district quality of care improvement processes. The H6 is also instrumental in supporting countries to harmonize action for quality of care, at the national and subnational levels.

Management

WHO, in close collaboration with UNICEF, UNFPA, countries and partners, provides the management support to the Quality of Care Network.

How to engage

Country membership: A Government wishing to join the Quality of Care Network must commit to improving quality of care for MNCH through creating an enabling environment, committing necessary resources required to improve QoC, providing regular public updates on progress towards national QoC goals for MNCH, as well as facilitating documentation and sharing learning sub-nationally, nationally and globally. To find out more, send a request here

To keep updated on the work of the Quality of Care Network, subscribe to our monthly updates, our Quality Talks podcast, or sign up for webinar notifications.