Guest post by Dr. Lilia Perez-Chavolla, Advisor to Zero Mothers Die
“Increasing impact through innovation” was the central topic of the 7th annual ICT4D Conference that the non-profit organization Catholic Relief Services (CRS) held in Chicago, IL, from the 27th to the 29th of May, 2015. Representatives from government, academia, the telecom, software and banking industries, and development and non-profit organizations got together to share lessons and promote initiatives that use information and communication technologies to improve agricultural and emergency response practices, build capacity, and increase access to healthcare and financial services among disadvantaged populations around the world.
Despite the diversity of topics covered over more than 100 sessions, the unifying thread of “impact and results” brought about recurrent discussions among the participants on best practices to implement monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL) procedures in ICT4D programs, and other factors necessary to implement sustainable solutions built for scale. The conference underscored the key role that public-private partnerships and local champions play in achieving these goals, as well as ways in which integrating innovation on M&E, remote sensing, data management and data visualization software can improve decision making.
In the area of e/mHealth, a conference highlight was the keynote presentation of Dr. Alain Labrique, Director of the Johns Hopkins University Global mHealth Initiative. Dr. Labrique explored the value of mobile connectivity for the continuity of care, stressing the ability of these technologies to compress time, connect people and create windows of opportunity, providing new ways to tackle persistent healthcare problems. He defined mHealth as a “health systems catalyst” that helps bring effective interventions to scale, increasing their coverage and overall impact. If we overcome the urge to “reinvent the wheel”, he noted, mHealth solutions that target patients, providers and the healthcare system can fill identified gaps and help “optimize what we know works”. Dr. Labrique pointed out that successful mHealth projects for maternal health are being integrated into national programs, as is the case of MAMA in South Africa.
The conference also included presentations on MomConnect, the national pregnancy registry system in South Africa, which uses cellphone SMS technology; D-Tree’s Safer Deliveries mHealth referral and emergency care project in Zanzibar that seeks to increase maternal use of healthcare facilities; and a pilot project implemented by RCRA in Uganda that combines the use of mobile phone applications with radio and TV messages to register, monitor, refer and educate women throughout their pregnancy and even after labor. Securing funds, however, remains an issue for the sustainability of some of these initiatives.
As Senior Advisor in ICT Applications for the WeObservatory, I had the pleasure of representing the Millennia2025 Foundation and Zero Mothers Die in the Fostering Innovation track of the conference, sharing information on the Intelligence MOOCs Commons for Women and eHealth (WeMOOCs), a WeObservatory’s initiative to support capacity building in the areas of women, health and technology. The WeMOOCs presentation generated interest on the compilation of massive open online courses in English, French and Spanish, currently offered in these three areas. We also brought attention to the current lack of MOOCs addressing the use of ICT for women’s and maternal health, calling upon interested parties to collaborate on the development of MOOCs on diverse perspectives of this topic.
Despite the diversity of topics covered over more than 100 sessions, the unifying thread of “impact and results” brought about recurrent discussions among the participants on best practices to implement monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL) procedures in ICT4D programs, and other factors necessary to implement sustainable solutions built for scale. The conference underscored the key role that public-private partnerships and local champions play in achieving these goals, as well as ways in which integrating innovation on M&E, remote sensing, data management and data visualization software can improve decision making.
In the area of e/mHealth, a conference highlight was the keynote presentation of Dr. Alain Labrique, Director of the Johns Hopkins University Global mHealth Initiative. Dr. Labrique explored the value of mobile connectivity for the continuity of care, stressing the ability of these technologies to compress time, connect people and create windows of opportunity, providing new ways to tackle persistent healthcare problems. He defined mHealth as a “health systems catalyst” that helps bring effective interventions to scale, increasing their coverage and overall impact. If we overcome the urge to “reinvent the wheel”, he noted, mHealth solutions that target patients, providers and the healthcare system can fill identified gaps and help “optimize what we know works”. Dr. Labrique pointed out that successful mHealth projects for maternal health are being integrated into national programs, as is the case of MAMA in South Africa.
The conference also included presentations on MomConnect, the national pregnancy registry system in South Africa, which uses cellphone SMS technology; D-Tree’s Safer Deliveries mHealth referral and emergency care project in Zanzibar that seeks to increase maternal use of healthcare facilities; and a pilot project implemented by RCRA in Uganda that combines the use of mobile phone applications with radio and TV messages to register, monitor, refer and educate women throughout their pregnancy and even after labor. Securing funds, however, remains an issue for the sustainability of some of these initiatives.
As Senior Advisor in ICT Applications for the WeObservatory, I had the pleasure of representing the Millennia2025 Foundation and Zero Mothers Die in the Fostering Innovation track of the conference, sharing information on the Intelligence MOOCs Commons for Women and eHealth (WeMOOCs), a WeObservatory’s initiative to support capacity building in the areas of women, health and technology. The WeMOOCs presentation generated interest on the compilation of massive open online courses in English, French and Spanish, currently offered in these three areas. We also brought attention to the current lack of MOOCs addressing the use of ICT for women’s and maternal health, calling upon interested parties to collaborate on the development of MOOCs on diverse perspectives of this topic.
