Developing a Monitoring Framework for a Maternal Health Program in Burundi

Since 2007, Village Health Works (VHW) has provided a wide range of clinical services to the people of Kigutu and its surrounding communities in southern Burundi. VHW’s approach combines community-driven development initiatives with comprehensive health care delivery to address the priorities of the Kigutu community and the many causes of disease and illness in this region of Burundi. A primary focus of VHW is to improve maternal health care provision for women in its catchment area, as Burundi suffers from a significant lack of resources – both human and material - to meet the basic standards of care for maternal health.

VHW intends to expand its maternal health program through the construction of a Women’s Health Pavilion in 2013 where more women will be able to give birth and emergency care will be provided as needed. VHW partnered with a team of SIPA students to develop a monitoring system to measure service delivery and monitor progress made towards reaching VHW’s goals of improving overall maternal health and reducing maternal mortality in their catchment area. The report that follows presents a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework specific to VHW’s maternal health program and detailed recommendations of how to implement a system of data collection and analysis based on the existing structures and organizational capacity of VHW.