2017 ICT4D Conference

The Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA) was launched in 2011 to catalyze the global community to deliver stage-based vital health information to new and expectant mothers and their families through mobile phones. The Bangladesh program Aponjon has already served 2 million women and their gate keepers since 2012. In addition to a 24/7 Doctor’s line and a mobile app, Aponjon is unique in terms of addressing sustainability through a subscription charge for subscribers who can pay. mMitra, of NGO ARMMAN in India, is a weekly/twice a week free voice call service providing information to more than 650,000 women, since inception in late 2014, through pregnancy and infancy in their chosen timeslot and language. Three tries for every message, a missed call system (if all three tries are missed), call center (to inform in case of delivery, miscarriage, change of timeslot or phone number), and HIV-AIDS and malnutrition customized programs add to the depth of the program. MAMA South Africa experimented with a 5 channel technology strategy (SMS, USSD, Mobisite, MXit and the Vodafone Live Operator Deck, VLive) to reach over 800,000 women within 3 years before the lessons and base technology from the program were used to create the national MomConnect program of the National Department of Health in 2014 which has now reached over 1 million mothers in 95% of South Africa clinics. The pilot phase of HelloMama, Nigeria, which commenced in 2015, is being implemented in Ebonyi and Cross River (41 sites; target: 15,000 women) before a nationwide scale-up.

The panel discussion will involve a representative from each country team collating and presenting the experiences of the four MAMA programs in mitigating the operational challenges faced in the key components of such large scale mHealth programs: Nigeria: Content; India: Implementation & Impact Assessment; South Africa: Technology and Bangladesh: Sustainability. The panel will leverage the wealth of experience within the four teams to disseminate valuable lessons learned that will benefit other nationwide mHealth programs.