Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship’s Global Social Benefit Institute (GSBI®) recently partnered with GE to launch the Healthymagination Mother + Child Program, a six month accelerator focused on maternal health innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa. To support and celebrate their efforts - and in recognition of the importance of maternal health to the Women Effect community - we have rounded up some of the most relevant research to support investors with an interest in this area.
Estimating Return on Investment in Health Maternal and Neonatal Mortality Reduction and Child Immunization in Bangladesh (Copenhagen Consensus Center, 2016)
The report’s estimates showed that providing facility-based delivery with skilled birth attendance (SBA) to pregnant women would cost $115 million USD in total and $77.0 USD per woman served. Such intervention was estimated to result in $1.33 billion USD total economic benefit.
Economic Benefits of Investing in Women’s Health: A Systematic Review (PLoS One, 2016)
This study documents an extensive literature confirming that women’s health is tied to long-term productivity: the development and economic performance of nations depends, in part, upon how each country protects and promotes the health of women. Providing opportunities for deliberate family planning; healthy mothers before, during, and after childbirth, and the health and productivity of subsequent generations can catalyze a cycle of positive societal development.
Returns on Investment in the Continuum of Care for Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (World Bank, 2016)
This paper demonstrates the considerable social and economic returns realized through the effect of investments in RMNCH interventions, building on and adding more specificity to earlier results.
Kenya Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health (RMNCAH) Investment Framework (Kenya Ministry of Health, 2016)
This investment framework presents a prioritized set of smart interventions that could be scaled up during the next five years to rapidly improve the health outcomes of Kenyan women, children and adolescents.
Investing in nursing and midwifery enterprise (NME) to empower women and strengthen health services and systems: An emerging global body of work (Nursing Outlook, 2016)
Often, in the form of microfinance and philanthropy, investment has focused mostly on women's commercial and agricultural ventures. In contrast, the health sector has generally aimed its empowerment investments on services to women, often focusing on family planning, maternal child, and family health. Empowerment of women working in the health sector appears largely incidental. This three-part article describes a global body of work elucidating the possibilities for, and impact of, investment in NMEs both to empower women and to strengthen health services and systems.
The Lancet Maternal Health Series (September 2016)
While not expressly focused on investment opportunities, we've included this as a useful synthesis of the last decade of evidence on maternal health worldwide, with papers outlining future opportunities and obstacles on the path to 2030’s SDGs.
