Mobile banking services to reduce maternal and neonatal deaths in the Philippines. E-vouchers to cover costs for maternity care and transportation to clinics, with text message reminders in Kenya. A campaign encouraging men to become partners in ensuring maternal and neonatal well-being during childbirth in Senegal.
You can vote online through 11 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on July 31 for those three projects or 50 others as your favorite innovation in protecting mothers and newborns in developing countries.
“Help your favorite #SavingLivesatBirth finalists earn coveted People’s Choice Awd,” tweeted @GCDSavingLives, the Twitter handle of the Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development
The People’s Choice Award is one of two special awards announced at the DevelopmentxChange, where organizers also nominate which among the 53 finalists will receive funding.
The awards are part of an initiative by the U.S. Agency for International Development, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Norwegian government, Grand Challenges Canada and U.K. Department for International Development. The challenge started in 2011 and is now on its third round.
According to a USAID press release, Saving Lives at Birth has so far financed 39 innovations that have helped address 150,000 maternal deaths, 1.6 million neonatal deaths and 1.2 million stillbirths each year.
Read our previous #innov8aid.
About the author
Eliza Villarino
Eliza Villarino currently manages one of today’s leading publications on humanitarian aid, global health and international development, the weekly GDB. At Devex, she has helped grow a global newsroom, with talented journalists from major development hubs such as Washington, D.C, London and Brussels. She regularly writes about innovations in global development.