Amani Global Works

The Problem
Despite the significant progress of global development over the last two decades, at least half of the world’s population lacks access to essential health services. Deep human suffering persists in communities where conflict, environmental degradation, migration, and other challenging circumstances leave communities inaccessible and marginalized. One such community is Idjwi Island, located in Lake Kivu, which straddles the borders of eastern DRC and Rwanda. Known as “Africa’s Forgotten Island,” many decades of limited government support, poor infrastructure, and deficient health systems have had profound, multi-generational effects on the island’s approximately 300K inhabitants. Idjwi experiences one of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates worldwide, a life expectancy of just 25 years, and a birth rate of more than eight births per birthing person. Until recently, there was no coherent health system: health outposts lacked basic equipment, reliable drug supply, running water, and electricity. The three mission hospitals on the island were poorly staffed and under-resourced.

The Solution
Starting with basic health infrastructure, Amani Global Works has successfully implemented a strategic set of health system interventions to provide access to quality primary and maternal health care to the entire island’s inhabitants and populations on the mainland. Amani Global Works operates a replicable primary health care model through the interconnected services of community health workers (CHWs), health clinics, and referral hospitals. Additionally, Amani supports children suffering from malnutrition by providing fortified meals in clinics and communities. Amani has trained more than 200 CHWs (over 80% women) who are paid and supervised to provide household-level care to mothers and children under five. CHWs refer patients to one of Amani’s 21 primary health clinics on the island, staffed by nurses and midwives who are jointly paid and supported by the government and Amani. CHWs refer most patients who visit the clinic, and those with cases too complex to be treated at the clinics (e.g., where surgery is required) are referred to the hospital.

Delivering quality at a lower cost than the government, Amani Global Works sees tremendous potential in bringing their CHW model to much of the rest of the DRC’s 89M residents and nearby countries. Amani has developed a proof of concept for providing dignified health care to the most underserved communities in the world. This model can serve as a blueprint for similarly complex regions where tens of millions of people lack access to the basic human right of health care. Ultimately, they aim to demonstrate the impact and cost-effectiveness of their model at scale and use these results to inform regional and national policy on building out healthcare infrastructure.