ALMA is supporting the Malawi’s Ministry of Health in the implementation of the country’s malaria, Reproductive Maternal Newborn Child and Adolescent Health (RMNCAH), community and Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) scorecard management tools for accountability and action, and the rollout of the Community scorecard.
Malawi’s National Malaria Control Programme developed the malaria scorecard management tool for accountability and action in 2017 with support from ALMA and partners. The scorecard tool is used to increase awareness about the malaria situation, support the identification of bottlenecks and drive action. Since the rollout, ALMA has supported the Ministry of Health in the strengthening of the scorecard management tool by orienting district stakeholders on its use.
Malawi’s RMNCAH scorecard management tool for action and accountability was first developed by the Ministry of Health in 2013 in collaboration with ALMA and partners. The scorecard tool is used to track key maternal and child health indicators, identify bottlenecks and drive action at the national and regional level using the action Trucker. Since its rollout, ALMA has supported the Ministry of Public Health in the review of the indicators and further strengthening of the scorecard management tool.
Following the Ethiopia Community scorecard program visits in 2017, the Malawi MOH with ALMA support established the Community scorecard management tool to enhance management and accountability of primary health services at the community level. Malawi’s Community scorecard includes both qualitative and quantitative indicators to track the performance of its community Health Services. The qualitative indicators capture community perceptions while the quantitative indicators track the National Community Health Strategy targets across five categories: community health system; reproductive, maternal and new-born health; child health and nutrition; communicable diseases, NCDs and NTDs and environmental health.
In 2019, ALMA, in collaboration with the Malawi UN system, further supported the MOH to decentralize the use of CSC at the district level. The Health Centre management Committee (HCMC) coordinates consolidation of Community scorecard information, facilitates bottleneck analysis and community interphase meetings, and the development of action plans to be implemented within the community and MOH structures as well as related ministers and partners.
Drawing from experiences from the RMNCAH and malaria scorecards tools to drive action and accountability, the Ministry of Health led the development of Malawi’s NTD Control and Elimination scorecard Tool in 2019. The scorecard tool is used to increase awareness about NTDs, track key indicators, identify bottlenecks and drive action. ALMA has also supported Malawi in training the NTD Focal points from 12 districts on scorecard analysis and action generation.