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Maternal health care in Senegal

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Senegal has only around 3.1 nurses and midwives per 10,000 people, which makes it one of the countries least covered with qualified maternal care in the world (162th out of 187 countries). Not surprisingly, outcomes for maternal and child health are poor. Where public hospitals are struggling to provide quality service, private clinics have sprung up, but most charge fees that only wealthier patients can afford. The private clinics have only been able to cover about 20% of the demand.

This study, titled, ‘Provision of Quality and Affordable Maternal Health Care in Developing Countries: A Case Study of Nest in Senegal’ shows that NEST is successfully reaching out to middle class women and those working in the informal sector, although few of its clients are among the extreme poor. Around 4% of the clients surveyed would likely fall below the national poverty line, which is the case for 17% of Dakar residents. Less wealthy women are accessing the service – 30% of respondents are estimated to live on less than $5.5 a day (a reality for 52% of residents of Dakar). Furthermore, NEST’s services are accessible to women without health insurance coverage –they account for 42%of respondents. This includes women working in the informal sector (about 27% of the economically active survey respondents). Visualization emerged as a potentially cost‐effective way to deliver information about midwife‐led care services, especially if this can be achieved in larger information campaigns via social media. The women who participated in the visualization proved more likely to be willing to consider the midwife‐ led service than their peers who received the same information in a more “traditional” format. NEST will now consider whether and how it can make more use of visualization techniques to promote this package.

The study was part of a joint program run by the European Investment Bank and the Global Development Network, initiated in 2016, that deployed African researchers to assess the development impacts of the EIB’s work in African and Caribbean countries, allowing the bank to enhance its contribution to sustainable and inclusive development while simultaneously enhancing local research and evaluative capacity.

Name of the Asset | The impact of private sector projects in Africa Studies from the EIB-GDN Program (Study from Cycle II: Provision of Quality and Affordable Maternal Health Care in Developing Countries: A Case Study of Nest in Senegal)

Type of Asset | Paper in the Volume: The impact of private sector projects in Africa: Studies from the EIB-GDN Program (Cycle II).

Date | 2020

Authors | Gilles‐Quentin Kane and Hamidou Jawara

Country and/or Region | Africa, The Caribbean and The Pacific (ACP) countries

Name of the Program | EIB-GDN Program in Applied Development Finance

Download the Full Report | Cycle II