Every day, 300 children and 20 mothers die in Uganda. In 2017 we organised a public call to identify high impact community-based social innovations that are improving maternal and child health in Uganda. We received 25-nominations. Innovations included those working to improve access to delivery care; improve the quality of neonatal care and creating better opportunities for disadvantaged women and children. Five solutions were selected by an external independent review panel for further case study research and promotion.

In 2017, our team visited each of the 5 selected innovations across Uganda. We interviewed innovators, implementers and beneficiaries from Kyaninga Child Development Center in Kabarole district, Healthy Child Uganda operating in Bushenyi and Rubirizi districts, Action for Women and Awakening in Rural Environment from Kaabong district, Bwindi Community Hospital in Kanungu district, and Imaging the World Africa operating in Kanungu, Sheema, Mubende, and Kamuli, districts. Full length case studies have been developed capturing the lessons and learning from each project.

Learn more about the case studies below.

In 2018, we launched the first Social Innovation in Health Fellowship. The aim of the fellowship was to equip our selected social innovations with research, entrepreneurship, and project management skills, in order to improve the design and impact of their work. The fellowship was designed as a modular learning program. Each module consisting of a 2-day face-to-face workshop in Kampala. Modules included: the basics of social innovation and business planning; project management and monitoring and evaluation.

In December 2017, we hosted a call for research proposals that seek to understand or address any community, health facility, or health system related challenges and explore relevant solutions. We received 51 applications from academia, Ministry of Health staff and district level health implementers with questions that could be relevant for improving service delivery.  Submitted proposals were reviewed and evaluated by an independent panel of experts. Successful candidates received small grants for their research studies and will be sharing their study findings at the end of 2018.

We reviewed published literature for examples of social innovation in health by searching PubMed and Google Scholar. 743-full text articles were reviewed. 23-articles were selected and of these 8 met the inclusion criteria.

Learn more about our review and download references for identified articles.

On 12th April 2018, we hosted the first ever national stakeholder workshop on social innovation in health in Uganda at Kabira Country Club, Kampala. The objective of the one-day workshop was to increase awareness about social innovation in health amongst stakeholders, through show casing examples from Uganda. The workshop gathered over 50-stakeholders including government officials, officers from innovation centres, innovators, academicians, students, NGO representatives and media personals.