Resources
In this section you can find educational and other resources to dowload and order, and useful links. Our most recent advocacy and policy papers are also available in this section.
If you'd like to receive hard copies of any of our resources please email fundraising@interactworldwide.org or telephone us on 0300 777 8500.
Social Protection for Safe Motherhood:
On this page you can download a new literature review and explanation of our project design on social protection for safe motherhood which has come out of our project in Uganda, Malawi and Ethiopia. It has been prepared by ODI and published jointly by ODI, Interact Worldwide under funding form DFID Social Protection describes a number of interventions whereby people are given cash, vouchers or helped to save money or join insurance schemes in order to protect them from falling into the cycle of poverty as a result of illness, loss of job, crop failure or other risks that many people in developing countries face that make their livelihoods unstable.An official definition is that Social protection aims to 'reduce risks, mitigate their impacts and increase the capacity of households to cope and respond to the risks (Devereux and Sabates-Wheeler, 2004).Interact was funded by the Department for International Development (DFID) to implement an innovative pilot project in Malawi, Uganda and Ethiopia to test if giving cash (cash transfers) to pregnant women increases their use of essential maternal health services like antenatal care and ensures they have funds to transport them to hospital should they experience a complication, such as breach birth or heavy bleeding, during delivery. The project tested how conditional cash transfers (cash linked to accessing the services) compared to unconditional cash transfers (giving women lump sums and just encouraging them to use it for the health of their pregnancy) made any difference to the intended outcomes.These publications from ODI are the first two in a series of three emerging from the project.More info about the project if necessary: The project is managed by Interact Worldwide in partnership 3 implementing NGOs: Adventist Health Services (AHS) in Malawi, United Protestant Medical Bureau (UPMB) in Uganda and the Amhara Development Association (ADA) in Ethiopia (see attached partner briefing). The Overseas Development Institute (ODI) was subcontracted to design the cash transfer programme and was responsible for the (research) baselines and endlines in selected districts in the three countries. The local NGOs and Interact have implemented the cash transfer programme in the three countries and conducted related advocacy/dissemination activities. In the three countries of implementation, prior to this pilot project, Interact was focused on the provision of comprehensive free MNH services through support to local clinics and service providers and advocacy for the adoption and scale up of free services. However, learning from a Big Lottery Funded project identified the need to address the costs of accessing services in the context of the global economic downturn and the preceding food and fuel price rises. Detail and scope: The project's original budget was £771,000, due to end on 30th Sept 2011 and 6,500 women were targeted to receive cash transfers. This grant agreement was revised in 2011 to include an extension to December 31st 2011, a budget revision downwards to £636,940 and a target revision downwards to 5,635 women to receive cash transfers. The project has piloted both conditional and unconditional cash transfers complimented by emergency funds. The scheme has focussed on providing this to highly vulnerable pregnant women (as identified through a vulnerability tool) and has been implemented in the catchment area of 40 health facilities in the three countries.
These are the links to the two documents coming from the Social protection project:Cash Transfers Maternal Health Cash transfers maternal health project design