To ensure that every mother can enjoy a healthy pregnancy and every child survives beyond their fifth birthday worldwide, the UN and World Health Organization launched the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescent’s Health (2016-2030). This Strategy is promoted by Every Woman Every Child, a global movement mobilizing new collaborations and partnerships between governments, multilaterals, the private sector and civil society to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

Today a woman in Tanzania is still 80 times more likely to die from pregnancy related causes than a woman in the United States. Multipartner collaboration and collective action are needed to address the root causes of such a huge disparity. On September 19^, 2017, Touch Foundation announced our first Every Woman Every Child commitment at the annual Every Woman Every Child Private Sector-Innovation high-level event, held during the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly. We have committed to raising $1 million dollars, combined with other committed funds, to expand the Mobilizing Maternal Health program across eight districts of Tanzania over the next four years to save the lives of mothers and newborns.

Touch Foundation, together with our partners including the Tanzanian government, Vodafone Foundation, Pathfinder International and D-tree International, will provide over 11,000 pregnant women and their newborns facing a medical emergency with safe, fast, and free transportation. Using mobile phone technology, our transport system is designed to take emergency calls (911-like) from remote areas on its toll-free line, triage a patient remotely 24/7, dispatch an ambulance or community taxi to bring the patient to a health facility, and monitor the patient’s progress from the moment help is called until their discharge. In addition, we will continue to improve the quality of health services in rural areas by training healthcare workers and building infrastructure like c-section theaters and neonatal intensive care units. Our evaluation of the first phase of this program in one of the pilot districts proved that this approach could reduce maternal mortality by at least 27%. Many more mothers and newborns will be saved as we scale up our evidence-based program.

Touch is enthusiastic about our commitment to Every Woman Every Child. We believe this international network will provide valuable global context to our programs and overall work, as we continue to align our mission with promoting the Global Strategy Principles and SDGs. Redoubling our efforts globally, together with our partners, we are moving towards creating the world in which, as the former UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon put it, “no woman, child or adolescent would face a greater risk of preventable death because of where they live or who they are.”