Accenture gives Amref an additional grant of US$3 million to help enhance m-health in Kenya

Accenture and the Accenture Foundations have awarded Amref Health Africa an additional grant of US$3 million to help the organization enhance and scale its mobile health training program to 3,000 community health workers in Kenya.

This grant brings Accenture’s direct support to Amref Health Africa to more than US$7.3 million since 2005.

This grant is a part of Accenture’s corporate citizenship initiative, Skills to Succeed, which is equipping more than 700,000 people around the world with the skills to get a job or build a business. The M-PESA Foundation has provided an additional US$1.5 million in funding.

Community health workers play a critical role in providing healthcare services to communities, but lack the training and support to deliver them effectively. Accenture’s two-year grant will enable Amref Health Africa to expand its Health Enablement and Learning Platform (HELP) – which provides community health workers with flexible, mobile access to skills training and support tools – and has the potential to improve healthcare services for hundreds of thousands of people across Africa.

Piloted in 2013, HELP is a mobile health learning platform developed in partnership with Vodacom-Mezzanine’s Helium platform, and Safaricom – a Vodafone affiliate in Kenya. HELP builds on Vodafone’s mhealth portfolio which, developed with its network of global partnerships, increases access to healthcare services through its customer reach and scalable mobile health solutions. Vodafone and Safaricom will continue to provide scalability and mobile solution expertise with technology partner Mezzanine.

“Through this collaborative partnership, we are leveraging technology and delivering measurable solutions that will make a profound impact across sub-Saharan Africa,” said Jill Huntley, managing director, Global Corporate Citizenship, Accenture. “By harnessing the power of mobile, Amref Health Africa is delivering job and medical skills training at speed and scale – a critical component in improving the health as well as the long-term economic sustainability of communities in Africa.”

“African countries are facing a severe shortage of healthcare workers who are able to provide support for communities in need. Providing in-depth, high-quality skills training via mobile devices will help develop the capacity and confidence of community health workers,” said Dr. Lennie Bazira Igbodipe-Kyomuhangi, interim CEO, Amref Health Africa. “By working together to scale HELP, we will support more community health workers with ongoing training, supervision and defined career paths that, in turn, benefit the health of their communities.”

“Through this cross-sector partnership, we will further increase the number of healthcare workers to deliver the health services needed to support their communities,” said Les Baillie, M-PESA Foundation executive director. “We’re actively building the foundation for a long-term, scalable and sustainable solution that will improve the lives of many people in Kenya, and ultimately, across Africa.”