Liberia: Our Impact

"When I arrived in Liberia in early 2014,” says Management Sciences for Health's (MSH's) Kwabena Larbi, senior technical advisor with the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP), “I found there were a lot of malaria partners—the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), Global Fund, international organizations, lots of NGOs… Each was more or less doing their own thing.”

For many Liberian women, the excitement of pregnancy is often accompanied by cautious fear. Too many of these women have experienced pregnancy complications themselves or know others who have suffered or died from hemorrhage, blood clots, infection, high blood pressure, or obstructed labor. While these complications pose serious dangers for all pregnant women, Liberian mothers face the added risk of a weak health system that often leaves them in the hands of untrained staff and ill-equipped facilities.

MSH contributes to health systems strengthening in Liberia through Rebuilding Basic Health Services (RBHS), a USAID-supported project, led by the JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc. We spoke recently with Floride Niyuhire, MD, MPH, a Performance-Based Financing Advisor for RBHS. Liberia experienced civil war throughout the 1990s, finally ending in 2003. How did civil war affect the health system?

(New York) Management Sciences for Health (MSH) today announced its $15-million Commitment to Action at the 2011 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting, pledging to scale up sustainable accredited drug seller programs in five African nations by 2015 and bring quality essential medicines to 70 million people in rural communities. The program will also positively impact the lives of thousands of female workers—many of the drug shop dispensers (up to 90 percent in some areas) are women—through creation of new business and employment opportunities.