The Challenge
The major benefit of using a marketplace approach to solving societal challenges such as maternal health is that it speeds up problem solving. While there are many working towards solving maternal and newborn health challenges, it is an ongoing challenge for different actors in maternal health to find each other and collaborate on solutions. As the maternal health landscape continues to be fragmented, applying this model will become increasingly crucial to solving the gaps in maternal health issues today. The “Maternal Health Mapping and Marketplace” platform will enable this ecosystem to thrive.
The Goal
A global, interactive, searchable platform, the Maternal Health Synapse aims to comprehensively identify all existing maternal health initiatives across the world, to uncover synergies and opportunities, facilitate collaboration across industries and sectors, and identify possible gaps in activities to be addressed.
Ultimately, the Synapse will form an interconnected and dynamic repository of maternal health experts, activists, initiatives and resources that is focused on building a crowdsourced global actionable community on maternal health.
It will also facilitate access to smart resources, innovators and problem-solvers, whether they are working independently, or within organizations.
Eventually, as the Synapse grows, it will further act as a “marketplace” for urgent maternal health needs and resources. The goal is that Maternal Health Synapse will enable supply of medicines, medical devices, education materials, hygiene kits, volunteers, etc.
About the Motherhood Collective Impact Programme
Synapse for Maternal Health is part of the broader Motherhood Collective Impact Programme, a not-for-profit partnership that aims to address the most challenging issues in maternal health by taking a novel, co-impact and systems-based approach.
The Motherhood Collective Impact Programme represents an overarching strategy that encompasses three interlinked sub-programmes:
Methodology
Online Collection Tool
Much information on maternal health efforts is not routinely published but instead is shared in meetings and discussions, mandating a need for a pro-active collection process. The online collection tool has been developed to gather data where there may be no documentation publicly available. The online collection tool captures quality data using pre-defined standards to allow for consistency in depiction and will also help to ensure that the information collected across various initiatives is credible, consistent, and up to date. Collecting and understanding initiatives by talking directly with those involved and requesting their input (rather than relying on desk research alone) provides a greater opportunity to understand efforts underway, including their successes and limitations. In addition, it allows identification of potential tools to measure the impact of maternal health initiatives. Finally, this allows a connection or contact with all initiatives, allowing further collaboration from the meta-framework point of view but also the creation of a global network of maternal health experts, activists, initiatives and resources.