Management Sciences for Health, Liberian Government Partner with USAID to Strengthen Liberia’s Health System

Arlington, VA—July 24, 2024—Management Sciences for Health (MSH) today announced it will partner with the Government of Liberia and USAID to improve the health of the country’s population.

Under the Local Health Solutions (LHS) Activity in Liberia, MSH will provide guidance and support to six Liberian organizations—four of which are women-led—as they implement a package of quality improvement and health systems strengthening interventions in targeted counties to improve primary health care services.

The LHS Activity will strengthen decentralized health governance; improve supply chain management at the subnational level; improve the quality of health services, including maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health, malaria services, and laboratory and disease surveillance systems; increase transparency and accountability of resources for improved service delivery; and enhance the ability of local Liberian organizations to successfully implement donor-funded health activities.

“We are thrilled to work with our Liberian colleagues as they continue to build more resilience into their country’s health system,” said Marian W. Wentworth, MSH President and CEO. “Our approach centers on local ownership from the outset, and this project will help our partners to make systemic changes at a new level, particularly in the areas of transparency and accountability. We look forward to contributing our technical knowledge and key relationships across the development sector to make sure this effort results in increased quality, availability, and affordability of health services to everyone in Liberia.”

MSH previously worked in Liberia for more than 15 years to rehabilitate the health system following more than a decade of civil war. During the 2014 Ebola epidemic, MSH worked with the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare to develop community care centers for Ebola patients that were separate from the health facilities, restore essential health services for non-Ebola patients, and improve the detection and containment of active cases in Liberian communities. 

Later, MSH supported Liberia’s Ministry of Health and Social Welfare to develop a new National Health Plan, National Health Policy, and Basic Package of Health Services. MSH supported efforts to scale up malaria control interventions, including improved management, storage, and use of malaria commodities and electronic tools to provide real-time data to improve the availability of malaria medicines and other health commodities. MSH also worked with the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare to make the registration of medical commodities faster and more transparent and with pharmacists and private medicine shop owners to systematically educate drug sellers on how to ensure the quality of their stock. This work to promote accreditation of private drug sellers and provide training, supervision, and business incentives greatly increased access to high-quality pharmaceutical products and services in underserved urban areas. 

More information about MSH’s work in Liberia is available here.