Madagascar

JSI has partnered with the government of Madagascar since the 1980s, offering sustainable solutions to expand and strengthen the country’s health system. Our efforts have focused on community health; family planning; nutrition; immunization; maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health; malaria and infectious diseases; and population, environment, and development. At the same time, JSI is building lasting solutions and strengthening expertise in health information system technology, digital health, data use, and supply chain management.

Digital Health

For nearly 20 years, JSI has worked with Madagascar’s Ministry of Health to implement and expand health information systems as part of building a more responsive health sector guided by clinical and programmatic evidence. Through the Country Health Information Systems and Data Use (CHISU) project, JSI supports implementation of digitized supportive supervision, interoperability of systems across the health sector, and enhancement of the community health information system’s digital platform. CHISU progresses gains made through the USAID-funded PMI MEASURE Malaria and MEASURE Evaluation projects.

Community Health

Our work in primary health care includes enhancing infectious disease surveillance and improving the quality of and access to services for infectious disease prevention and treatment, comprehensive and integrated family planning, maternal and child health, and nutrition. Our Community Capacity for Health Program, known locally as Mahefa Miaraka, strengthened capacity of the public health system to manage community health activities and support community health volunteers. The program contributed to Madagascar’s efforts to reduce maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent mortality and morbidity. Mahefa Miaraka also joined coalitions to reduce gender-based violence and prevent child marriage among high-risk populations. Mahefa Miaraka furthered work of the former USAID-funded and JSI-managed Madagascar Community-Based Integrated Health program.

Immunization

Strengthening immunization programs that focus on underserved or hard-to-reach populations and identifying and addressing obstacles to vaccination uptake are central to JSI engagement in Madagascar. We participate in the national Vaccination Technical Working Group and the Coordination Committees. Through Gavi funding, JSI provides technical and management assistance for new vaccine introduction, including for HPV and the pentavalent, pneumococcal conjugate, and rotavirus vaccines. We supported HPV vaccine pilots in multiple countries, including Madagascar. Through the USAID MOMENTUM Routine Immunization Transformation and Equity project, JSI collaborated with the government on its 100-day COVID-19 vaccination campaign and identified approaches to reach rural populations and high-priority groups with COVID-19 vaccines.

Improving Health Supply Chains

JSI works to ensure that people have on-demand access to high-quality affordable health supplies where, when, and how they want to receive them. We partner with Madagascar’s Ministry of Health to strengthen its open logistics management information system. Through the Madagascar Integrated Energy Planning Project, JSI gathered information on health facility and cold chain availability, mapping the supply chain using data on health centers, road networks, cold chain technology, and energy supply to build a more efficient and reliable vaccine distribution system.

Funded by the Gates Foundation through the COVID-19 Vaccine Collaborative Supply Planning Initiative (VCSP) initiative, JSI developed an approach to analyzing information for the creation and maintenance of robust and agile supply plans. These plans will help ensure that timely, adequate quantities of the COVID-19 vaccine are available to the people who need them. In 2023, we started the Supply Chain Technical Support Mechanism for NTD Programs to strengthen supply chain systems for four preventive chemotherapy treatments in eight focus countries, including Madagascar. JSI also works with the supply chain sector through the Injectables Access Collaborative (AC), which expands access and choice to a range of high-quality contraceptive options for women and girls.