As part of a consortium of implementing organizations for the USAID-funded President’s Malaria Initiative for States (PMI), ThinkWell leads the delivery of health financing and institutional strengthening interventions across eight states in Nigeria.

The PMI project is designed to contribute to Nigeria’s national malaria elimination program’s vision of a “malaria-free Nigeria.” The project is also designed to contribute to the PMI 2015–2020 goal of reducing malaria-associated mortality by decreasing the incidence of severe malaria and associated complications. The goal of PMI for States is to contribute to the reduction of all causes of under-five and maternal mortality by delivering quality services for the management of malaria and its complications and the prevention of malaria during pregnancy. 

In support of this initiative, ThinkWell provides technical assistance and advisory support to the State Malaria Elimination Programs (SMEPs) and malaria technical working groups to strengthen institutional capacity for improved operational planning and activity implementation monitoring as well as better coordination and mobilization of resources for malaria interventions. We are achieving this through evidence-based approaches, deployment of tools, process facilitation, and technical assistance.

State Malaria Elimination Programs (SMEPs) are critical in Nigeria’s malaria control architecture as they provide oversight of malaria control activities at the sub-national level. It is anticipated that at the end of the project, ThinkWell will have supported the SMEPs in the eight intervention states to: (1) develop the capacity to lead the development of their operational plans, (2) improve and monitor activity implementation, (3) develop better measurement and reporting systems, and (4) improve capacity for resource mobilization for the malaria program with minimal external support from development partners after the project.

Malaria remains a leading cause of death in Nigeria and a significant contributor to the unacceptably high maternal and under-5 mortality rates in Nigeria. Nigeria currently accounts for 27% of malaria cases and 23% of malaria-related deaths globally.

With funding from USAID, ThinkWell undertook a global review of quality of care in results-based financing (RBF). The review included more than 25 results-based financing programs, analyzing over 60 results-based financing quality of care checklists. This landscaping has multiple goals. First, to create a unique, large repository of quality of care checklists which had not existed previously. Second, to conduct an analysis of these checklists to understand the focus of quality of care checklists. Third, through three case studies, to explore in more detail how paying for quality of care works in implementations. ThinkWell analyzed checklists from programs on three different continents and across multiple levels of healthcare to create a database of indicators and a landscape analysis of current implementations. Using data from the various indicators, ThinkWell illuminates how quality is being measured in health facilities, trends in how different services and processes are measured and valued, weaknesses in quality measurement, and how paying for quality can evolve.

Click here to download the Mozambique Case Study.

Click here to download the Nigeria Case Study.

Click here to download the Performance-Based Incentives to Improve Quality of Care for RMNCH- Programmatic Database

Click here to download the Performance-Based Incentives to Improve Quality of Care for RMNCH- Indicator Database