Organized Network of Services for Everyone’s Health Activity

Organized Network of Services for Everyone’s Health Activity

Highlights

Together with the government of Malawi and local partners, between 2016-2022, we improved the quality and access to essential health services, strengthened health system performance, and increased demand across 16 districts.

More than two million Malawians accessed essential health services for immunizations, maternal and newborn care, family planning, nutrition counseling, malaria diagnosis and treatment, and more.

Three million children under 5 years of age with pneumonia received antibiotics from trained health workers and 540,000 children were fully vaccinated against measles-rubella.

Some 3.8 million youth were reached through youth-friendly health services and 305,000 youths accessed family planning services from ONSE-supported mobile outreach teams.

ONSE Health Activity in Malawi provides support to the MOH’s pandemic response plan

Over 610,000 people were vaccinated against COVID-19 with support from ONSE since 2021, nearly 57% of all vaccines administered across the country.

Together for Everyone’s Health

The Organized Network of Services for Everyone’s (ONSE) Health Activity held a closeout ceremony in Lilongwe to celebrate progress made and accomplishments achieved during its six years (2016-2022) assisting the Malawi Ministry of Health to expand access to quality health care services throughout the country. The event – Together for Everyone’s Health – recognized the many actors working toward locally led and sustainable improvements in health care service delivery, which have improved the lives of millions of people in Malawi.

Overview

In Malawi, we led USAID’s flagship health program, the ONSE Health Activity, which targeted major improvements in health through sustainable approaches and increased country ownership. ONSE delivered a package of health interventions to strengthen the health system and increased access, improved quality, and increased demand for services in family planning and reproductive health; maternal, newborn, and child health; nutrition; malaria; and water, sanitation, and hygiene. As a trusted partner to the Ministry of Health and Population, district health governments, health facilities, and community groups, we co-designed performance-improvement interventions using data to work through bottlenecks and systematically addressed gaps in the system to ensure the delivery of quality care. ONSE helped transform local capacity and health infrastructure across 16 districts, bringing essential health care services to more than half of Malawi’s population. ONSE was also a key partner in the government’s response to cholera, Cylcone Idai, and COVID-19, enabling the coordinated and rapid district-led response needed to contain the pandemic.

While Malawi has increased access to family planning and reproductive health services, those living in rural areas still face challenges. To address this, the ONSE Health Activity rolled out DMPA-SC, or Sayana Press, a self-injecting contraceptive tool that has shown usage success in its early trial period. Sayana Press has been rolled out in 7 of 21 districts in the country.
The private health sector, including health facilities and drug shops (where clients purchase medications without consultation), is an important source of malaria treatment in Malawi. USAID’s ONSE Health Activity is supporting private health clinics in standardizing and improving the diagnosis, treatment, and case management they offer to malaria patients. Through intensive supportive supervision, coaching, and mentoring, ONSE designs customized capacity building and targeted support for private-for-profit facilities and providers to stay up-to-date on evidence-based diagnostic tools, medicines, and treatment protocols and to ensure that they are effectively regulated and linked to the public health system.
Under PEPFAR-funded projects, our teams have been employing index case testing as one strategy to reach the UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets. In index case testing, a person with confirmed HIV infection (an index case) is asked to contact family members (children, spouse, sexual partners, siblings, and parents) to invite them to be tested for HIV. Watch this webinar to learn more through three case studies from Ethiopia, Angola, and Malawi.

ONSE End of Project Infographic

ONSE End of Project Infographic
Ann Phoya headshot
Ann Phoya

Chief of Party

Project Contact

Ann Phoya, Chief of Party for the USAID-funded Organized Network of Services for Everyone’s (ONSE) Health Activity, is a public health nurse midwife who has worked for over 38 years in the Malawi Public Health Services, in positions ranging from nursing/midwifery practice to education, management, and policy. At the policy level, Phoya served in the Ministry of Health as Head of Planning and Policy Development; Director of the Sector-Wide Approach; Director of Nursing and Midwifery Services; and as a manager for Safe Motherhood and Family Planning projects. In addition to her current work, she is also President of the Midwives Association of Malawi.

Donors & Partners

Donors

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI)

Partners

Banja la Mtsogolo

Dimagi