The United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Bureau for Global Health’s flagship Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP) is designed to advance USAID’s goal of Ending Preventable Child and Maternal Deaths, and is currently working in 25 countries. MCSP supports the introduction and scale-up of high-impact, sustainable reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health (RMNCH) interventions in partnership with ministries of health and other partners.

MCSP accepts all sources of health funds and can be accessed via field support. While MCSP is the principal follow-on to the Maternal and Child Health Integrated Program (MCHIP), the scope has expanded to reflect a changing global RMNCH landscape as well as shifts in USAID’s own priorities. MCSP places a greater emphasis on key cross-cutting issues such as innovation, e/mHealth, equity, quality, gender, public-private partnerships and involvement of civil society, community approaches, health systems strengthening, and behavior change interventions.

While maintaining a focus on technical, high-impact interventions, MCSP works toward sustainable scale-up to include the health systems that deliver these interventions. MCSP is a partnership led by Jhpiego, with Save the Children Federation, Inc., John Snow, Inc., ICF, Results for Development Institute, PATH, CORE Group and PSI as lead partners and Broad Branch Associates, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Communications Initiative and Avenir Health as associate partners.

In addition to contributing to high-level technical and policy dialogue at the global level, MCSP provides tailored technical assistance to help countries meet specific priorities and contextual needs of local RMNCH programs, including:

• - Supporting countries to increase coverage and utilization of evidence-based, high-quality RMNCH interventions at the household, community and health facility levels, integrating with nutrition, malaria, HIV/AIDS and water, sanitation and hygiene interventions as appropriate.
• - Closing innovation gaps to improve health outcomes among high-burden and vulnerable populations through engagement with a broad range of partners.
• - Fostering effective policy, action-oriented learning and accountability for improved outcomes.
• - Supporting countries to strengthen existing national health management information systems, including RMNCH data elements, data quality and the use of data to inform programmatic decision-making.
• - Strengthening civil society, local institutions and communities and engaging at all levels to enhance the responsiveness of health systems to local and community health needs.
• - Enhancing district-level decision-making through rapid household surveys to determine coverage and health facility assessments and quality of facility interventions.
• - Applying gender, equity and health systems-focused approaches to improve service availability, access, quality, demand, cost-effectiveness and utilization at scale.
• - Providing technical assistance to design, implement and/or evaluate models, tools and approaches to address the special needs of adolescents and youth for family planning and maternal and newborn health services in an integrated fashion.

Vision

The Maternal and Child Survival Program is a global, USAID Cooperative Agreement to introduce and support high-impact health interventions with a focus on 24 high-priority countries with the ultimate goal of ending preventable child and maternal deaths (EPCMD) within a generation. The Program is focused on ensuring that all women, newborns and children most in need have equitable access to quality health care services to save lives.

Intervention Areas

The Maternal and Child Survival Program supports programming in maternal, newborn and child health, immunization, family planning and reproductive health, nutrition, health systems strengthening, water/sanitation/hygiene, malaria, prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and pediatric HIV care and treatment.

The Program’s strategic objectives are to: 

• - Support countries to increase coverage and utilization of evidence-based, high-quality reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health (RMNCH) interventions at the household, community and health facility levels
• - Close innovation gaps to improve health outcomes among high-burden and vulnerable populations through engagement with a broad range of partners
• - Foster effective policymaking, program learning and accountability for improved RMNCH outcomes across the continuum of care

Approach

Awarded in the spring of 2014, the Maternal and Child Survival Program engages governments, policymakers, private sector leaders, health care providers, civil society, faith-based organizations and communities in adopting and accelerating proven approaches to address the major causes of maternal, newborn and child mortality such as postpartum hemorrhage, birth asphyxia and diarrhea, respectively, and improve the quality of health services, from household to hospital. The Program will tackle these issues through approaches that also focus on health systems strengthening, household and community mobilization, gender integration and eHealth, among others.

With approaches tailored to meet individual country needs, the Program seeks to empower countries to design effective approaches, develop technical skills, apply analytical tools, manage workforce capacity and devote resources to reduce inequities in care and build sustainable health systems to keep mothers, newborns and children alive and healthy.