October 2021

Every Woman Every Child Innovation Marketplace shown to improve lives, effectively raise capital

CII has been a founding partner/advisor for the Every Woman Every Child Innovation Marketplace (EWEC-IM), which recently completed its five year project duration. Over the course of the past five years, more than 29 companies and organizations supported by the platform have mobilized capital as a direct or indirect result of the activities of the EWEC-IM. Those portfolio companies successfully mobilized $46M in grants, equity, and debt financing. The initial data has shown that the portfolio companies reached over 24M beneficiaries, resulting in more than 18,000 lives saved and 625,000 lives improved over the course of the project’s duration.

Merrick Schaefer delivered ‘Digital Health: Planning National Systems’ course for MOHs

Senior Advisor for Digital Health, Merrick Schaefer delivered in-depth training on the use of digital technologies to support country-based global health programs. The course, ‘Digital Health: Planning National Health Systems’, was co-developed by Schaefer and he has already delivered it to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) digital health team and over 80 Ministry of Health staff. The course is designed to empower ministry leadership with the technical concepts and planning tools necessary to effectively lead national digital health stakeholders. The curriculum features critical health concepts, existing best practices, and pragmatic methods, all framed according to the national planning cycle that Ministry of Health officials manage.

Project Last Mile partnership with Coca-Cola and others contributing to COVID response

Two articles recently published by USAID and the Evening Standard highlight the work of Project Last Mile (PLM) in contributing to the COVID response. In South Africa PLM worked to catalyze production of PPE, both to protect people from the virus and to provide jobs in the country. The result was over 1.9 million units of PPE and nearly 500 jobs created at six small and medium-sized suppliers. In Eswatini, PLM reviewed 95 percent of the country’s cold-chain storage facilities to reduce wasted vaccines. They did this work in addition to utilizing existing relationships with small, independent delivery partners to get vaccines to remote areas and partnering with the private sector to vaccinate during non-working hours.