Mali
IntraHealth International, a Global Communities Partner, is working collaboratively with local partners to improve training for nurses and midwives in Mali and to advance uptake of integrated maternal, newborn, and child health, nutrition, and family planning services.
For more than two decades, IntraHealth International, a Global Communities Partner, has worked with local public and private partners to support Mali’s capacity to strengthen its health systems and improve access to high-quality maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH), family planning, and other essential services. This includes addressing specific needs in areas such as preventing and treating obstetric fistula and improving school sanitation facilities and good health and hygiene practices for vulnerable adolescent girls. IntraHealth has also assisted Mali with major health systems improvements, notably in preservice education and in-service training for nurses and midwives, policies and standard operating procedures, and the country’s digital information system to plan and manage its health workforce, including launching an eLearning platform.
We work hand-in-hand with key partners at all levels of the health system (including civil society organizations and private associations) and in communities (with local elected officials and religious, women, and youth leaders) to implement high-impact, sustainable interventions that can bring better health care to Malians today and tomorrow.
Current Programs
Classroom to Care (C2C)
The C2C project's investments lay the foundation for a more resilient health workforce, ready to meet maternal and newborn health challenges in underserved communities across Mali, Niger, and Senegal. With funding from Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, C2C supports 12 private health training institutions in the three countries to implement a competency-based approach that considers population and student needs and to partner effectively with the public sector. The project is also helping the schools establish up-to-date skills labs and clinical practicum sites and develop eLearning platforms for access to educational resources and self-training. At the end of the project’s third year, 7.046 nursing and midwifery students—74% of whom are women—are benefitting from updated curricula adapted to local clinical practice. This has helped to achieve a more than 95% pass rate on students’ national exams across the 12 partner schools.
INSPiRE
Through this regional award from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Global Communities/IntraHealth is working to accelerate family planning uptake and improve MNCH indicators in the critical pre- and post-pregnancy period through integrated client-centered postpartum family planning (PPFP), MNCH, and nutrition services delivered at scale in Francophone West Africa. INSPiRE is demonstrating that providing a comprehensive package of essential services to mother and child during the same visit—at four entry points: antenatal care, delivery, postpartum care, and essential newborn care/Immunization—improves utilization, quality, and cost-effectiveness of services.
As of June 2025, INSPiRE’s integration model is being implemented in 14,826 health facilities in Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Togo, through synergistic coordination with the Francophone Africa Regional Community of Practice for Integrated PPFP/MNCH-N, chaired by the West African Health Organization, which supports resource and partner mobilization for scale-up. Since 2019, demonstration sites of the project have seen a 275% increase in PPFP use in supported health facilities along with a 380% increase in well-baby visits for growth monitoring.
Previous Programs
MOMENTUM Safe Surgery, Family Planning, and Obstetrics
As a partner to EngenderHealth on this global project (2021-2025) funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), IntraHealth led cross-cutting technical assistance in Mali focused on:
- Scaling up and sustaining access to and use of evidence-based reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health and family planning information, services, and interventions
- Improving the capacity of local institutions, organizations, and providers to deliver high-quality services
- Increasing adaptive learning and use of evidence for reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health programming through sustained Malian technical leadership.
Ouagadougou Partnership Coordination Unit (OPCU)
After the pivotal family planning conference in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in 2011, multiple donors joined nine governments to initiate the Ouagadougou Partnership, committed to elevate family planning in West Africa. With support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, IntraHealth managed the Ouagadougou Partnership Coordination Unit (OPCU) from 2012 to 2022, which raised the partnership’s visibility and helped member countries develop and implement costed implementation plans for family planning. Between 2012 and 2015, the partnership was responsible for 1.18 million new users of modern family planning, a 40% regional increase. Building on this success, the nine governments embarked on an acceleration phase and had reached 7.1 million users by 2022. IntraHealth transferred the OPCU to Senegal-based Speak Up Africa in 2021.
Mali Human Resources for Health (HRH) Strengthening Activity
IntraHealth partnered with the government of Mali to strengthen its health workforce through this USAID-funded project (2017-2020). Mali HRH aimed to scale up progress in maternal and child survival and protect citizens from emerging health threats such as Ebola and pandemic influenza. Project achievements included:
- 72% of health workers attained key skills in infection prevention and control, a 47% increase from when the project started.
- Global health security agenda policies and standard operating procedures were updated based on WHO guidelines.
- 26,215 health workers (including 3,604 from the private sector) were registered in iHRIS, the free, open-source software developed by IntraHealth that helps countries track and manage their health workforce data.
- Mali developed its first five-year strategic plan based on an updated HRH development policy.
- 8 public and private higher education institutions adopted the West African Health Organization’s harmonized curriculum based on a competency-based learning approach.
- Mali developed its first gender analysis report on inequalities and barriers related to the recruitment, deployment, motivation, and retention of women in the health sector.
Civil Society for Family Planning (CS4FP)
With funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Dutch Embassy, the IntraHealth-led CS4FP project (2011-2020) worked with adolescents and young adults to collaboratively design solutions to improve the ability of youth to make informed decisions and better access respectful, quality family planning services. CS4FP helped establish and support national civil society coalitions for family planning in nine West African countries to raise a collective voice in planning with governments to meet family planning commitments. The project partnered with 364 youth ambassadors from five countries to reach more than 100,000 adolescents through youth-led campaigns.
Past IntraHealth Programs
- Promoting the Quality of Medicines Plus (PQM+) (USAID), 2019-2025
- Girls Leadership and Empowerment through Education (GLEE) (USAID), 2018-2023
- Global Health Supply Chain-Procurement Supply Management (GHSC-PSM) (USAID), 2016-2022
- Capacity Building for Fistula Treatment and Prevention in Mali (USAID), 2014-2019
- CapacityPlus (USAID), 2009-2015
- Keneya Ciwara II (USAID), 2008-2013
- ATN Plus (USAID), 2008-2013
- Capacity Project (USAID), 2004-2009
- PRIME II (USAID), 1999-2004
Impact
2,548
students, faculty and staff receiving
new or enhanced health care skills
and knowledge in 2024
620
qualified health professionals trained in 2024
88%
percentage of women who received
family planning services within 48 hours after giving birth with GATPA and whose newborn was breastfed within one hour of birth
Resources
Digital health for mothers and newborns: Evaluating a mobile voice messaging awareness campaign in Mali, a descriptive observational study
Transforming Health Worker Training in Mali Using a Competency-Based Approach
Decentralizing Mali’s Health Workforce Information System
News
Classroom to Care Equips Mali’s Next Health Leaders
In Koutiala, Mali, the Espoir de Koutiala School of Health (ESK) recently marked a major milestone with the graduation of its 19th class. But the event was more than just a diploma ceremony — it was a powerful testament to the success of a bold initiative led by IntraHealth International, a Global Communities Partner, through the Classroom to Care (C2C) project. C2C actively strengthens health professional training in the region by focusing on…