Through phases one and two of this regional award from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, IntraHealth International is working to improve nutrition and reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health in the nine Ouagadougou Partnership countries of West Africa.

Francophone West Africa has among the highest maternal, neonatal, and child mortality rates in the world. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 303,000 women died in 2015 due to complications of pregnancy or childbirth, more than one-third of them in West and Central Africa. The global maternal mortality rate is 216/100,000 live births, while the maternal mortality rate in the nine Ouagadougou Partnership countries—Benin, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Togo, Burkina Faso, Cote D’Ivoire, and Niger—ranges from 315 (Senegal) to 679 (Guinea).

One out of every 41 women will die of maternal causes in these countries, compared to 1 in 4,900 in higher-income nations.

Together, IntraHealth and our partners work with the nine Ouagadougou Partnership countries to:

• Achieve their national goals to increase modern contraceptive prevalence rates
• Stop preventable maternal and child deaths
• Improve maternal nutrition and feeding practices for infants and young children
• Ensure the health, nutrition, and well-being of mothers, newborns, and infants.

While INSPiRE will support all nine Ouagadougou Partnership countries, it will provide higher levels of targeted support and resources to three flagship countries: Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, and Niger.

Using lessons learned from the successes and challenges the Ouagadougou Partnership countries experienced as they built their costed implementation plans for family planning, the project will work with the nine member countries to:

• Make the case for client-centered integrated services through routine data, implementation science, impact evaluation, and cost studies and disseminate findings/results.
• Reinforce the regional community of practice for coordination, technical assistance, advocacy, and resource mobilization to scale up integrated services.
• Advocate to governments, implementers, and donors to mobilize resources for, and implement the INSPiRE model as the preferred approach to scaling up integrated family planning; maternal, newborn and child health; and nutrition, services.