Ethiopia

Working with our measurement, learning and evaluation partners and using multidisciplinary research methods, our findings on what works, why and how aims to close the gap in implementation research on how to get life-saving interventions to families at scale.

In Ethiopia, the IDEAS project worked across a range of research areas.

Supporting local decision-making

To enhance the capacity of health systems, quality data needs to be generated and used at the local level for timely course correction, improved health outcomes and the long-term sustainability of health initiatives. Following an Ethiopian feasibility study in 2012 and the experiences of a prototype phase in the state of West Bengal State in India, we developed an intervention to support data-driven decision-making at district level in Ethiopia, supported implementation over a period of 21 months, and used a cluster-randomised controlled evaluation in 24 districts (woreda) in North Shewa zone, which showed strong evidence of improved health information system performance and data-driven decision-making.

Understanding quality improvement

Building on our previous work to understand behaviour change at household level in Ethiopia, IDEAS used novel qualitative and quantitative approaches to understand health worker behaviours that drive quality improvement in the provision and utilisation of maternal and newborn health services.

One initiative supporting understanding quality improvement is the Quality of Care Network research (QCN). IDEAS collaborated with a multi-country research project titled: “How does a multi-country, multilateral network focused on specific health care improvements evolve and what shapes its ability to achieve its goals?” (‘QCN project’).  The parent project is led by the UCL Institute for Global Health. Working with the Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI), IDEAS focused on the experience of Ethiopia as part of this larger body of research.

Fostering innovation sustainability

We studied how to scale-up and sustain maternal and newborn health innovations in Ethiopia, northeast Nigeria and Uttar Pradesh in India. We defined ‘scale-up’ as the adoption of donor-funded health innovations beyond original programme districts, and ‘sustainability’ as the longer-term implementation of donor-funded innovations that have been scaled-up.

Community-Based Newborn Care

Community-Based Newborn Care (CBNC) is an Ethiopian national initiative launched in 2013. It brings life-saving care to mothers and newborns at the community level within the Ethiopian health system. IDEAS collaborated with the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health and JaRco Consulting to evaluate the CBNC programme through a series of quantitative surveys and qualitative assessments over five years.