By Chemtai Kirui
Kenya has been recognized with the Best Reproductive Maternal Newborn Child and Adolescent Health (RMNCAH) scorecard and tools award for its use of technology in the fight against malaria. The technology has been decentralized to county-level and used in existing accountability mechanisms to aid in malaria elimination among women and children. The award was presented during the recent Africa Union (AU) Heads of State and Government meeting held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The award celebrates countries that have made significant progress in digitization, institutionalizing scorecard tools, empowering citizens, and using data-driven decision-making to improve health services and outcomes. Kenya was praised for its significant progress in digitizing national health programs to improve health services and outcomes. The RMNCAH scorecard is shared with key partners at national, county, and health facility levels.
Kenya was among seven African countries that received awards recognizing excellence and innovation in their efforts to eliminate malaria. The Zero Malaria – Draw The Line campaign to eliminate malaria within a generation has gained traction among the youth aged between 18 and 35 years. Spearheaded in Kenya by Zero Malaria Campaign Coalition (ZMCC), the campaign seeks to ensure elimination of malaria on the continent.
The research findings presented by ZMCC’s David Kabera indicated that the targeted generation should live to see how zero malaria will lead to a stronger, healthier, and more prosperous world for the next generations. “It is therefore crucial to engage youth in malaria campaigns if they are to be scalable and effective. There is a need to understand how to incorporate youth insights and engagement in the development of campaigns,” he said.
Other African countries that received awards included Zambia, DRC, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Ghana, and Tanzania, in different categories recognizing excellence and innovation in their efforts to eliminate malaria. Each country was assessed using the Scorecard Maturity assessment tool based on five criteria: Management use, Decentralization, Stakeholder sharing, Institutionalization and political use, and Documentation and evaluation.