Vodafone and its partners – Safaricom, Mezzanine and M-PESA Foundation –
to expand mobile health training platform
LONDON -- (Business Wire)
Accenture
(NYSE:ACN) and the Accenture Foundations have awarded Amref
Health Africa an additional grant of US$3 million to help the
organization enhance and scale its mobile health training program to
3,000 community health workers in Kenya. This grant brings Accenture’s
direct support to Amref Health Africa to more than US$7.3 million since
2005.
This grant is a part of Accenture’s corporate citizenship initiative, Skills
to Succeed, which is equipping more than 700,000 people around
the world with the skills to get a job or build a business. The M-PESA
Foundation has provided an additional US$1.5 million in funding.
Community health workers play a critical role in providing healthcare
services to communities, but lack the training and support to deliver
them effectively. Accenture’s two-year grant will enable Amref Health
Africa to expand its Health Enablement and Learning Platform (HELP)
– which provides community health workers with flexible, mobile access
to skills training and support tools – and has the potential to improve
healthcare services for hundreds of thousands of people across Africa.
Piloted in 2013, HELP is a mobile
health learning platform developed in partnership with Vodacom-Mezzanine’s
Helium platform, and Safaricom – a Vodafone affiliate in Kenya. HELP
builds on Vodafone’s mhealth portfolio which, developed with its network
of global partnerships, increases access to healthcare services through
its customer reach and scalable mobile health solutions. Vodafone and
Safaricom will continue to provide scalability and mobile solution
expertise with technology partner Mezzanine.
“Through this collaborative partnership, we are leveraging technology
and delivering measurable solutions that will make a profound impact
across sub-Saharan Africa,” said Jill Huntley, managing director, Global
Corporate Citizenship, Accenture. “By harnessing the power of mobile,
Amref Health Africa is delivering job and medical skills training at
speed and scale – a critical component in improving the health as well
as the long-term economic sustainability of communities in Africa.”
“African countries are facing a severe shortage of healthcare workers
who are able to provide support for communities in need. Providing
in-depth, high-quality skills training via mobile devices will help
develop the capacity and confidence of community health workers,” said
Dr. Lennie Bazira Igbodipe-Kyomuhangi, interim CEO, Amref Health Africa.
“By working together to scale HELP, we will support more community
health workers with ongoing training, supervision and defined career
paths that, in turn, benefit the health of their communities.”
“Through this cross-sector partnership, we will further increase the
number of healthcare workers to deliver the health services needed to
support their communities,” said Les Baillie, M-PESA Foundation
executive director. “We’re actively building the foundation for a
long-term, scalable and sustainable solution that will improve the lives
of many people in Kenya, and ultimately, across Africa.”
About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and
outsourcing company, with approximately 319,000 people serving clients
in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience,
comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions,
and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies,
Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance
businesses and governments. Through its Skills
to Succeed corporate citizenship initiative, Accenture is
equipping more than 700,000 people around the world with the skills to
get a job or build a business. The company generated net revenues of
US$30.0 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2014. Its home page
is www.accenture.com.
About Amref Health Africa
Amref Health Africa is an international African not-for-profit
organization headquartered in Nairobi founded as the Flying Doctor
Service of East Africa in 1957. Amref Health Africa’s vision is for
lasting health change in Africa: communities with the knowledge, skills
and means to maintain their good health and break the cycle of poor
health and poverty. With a focus on women and children, Amref Health
Africa works with the most vulnerable African communities to achieve
lasting health change. Amref Health Africa reaches over 35 countries,
with country or regional offices in seven countries and a staff of over
1,000. Amref Health Africa provides training and consulting support
across various countries in Africa and to date has trained over 600,000
health workers of all cadres using a range of approaches, including the
use of technologies such as electronic learning and mobile learning. www.amref.org.
About Vodafone
Vodafone is one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies and
provides a range of services including voice, messaging, data and fixed
communications. Vodafone has mobile operations in 26 countries, partners
with mobile networks in 54 more, and fixed broadband operations in 17
markets. As of 31 December 2014, Vodafone had 444 million mobile
customers and 11.8 million fixed broadband customers. For more
information, please visit: www.vodafone.com.
About Safaricom
Safaricom transforms lives. We provide voice, data, financial services
and enterprise solutions for a range of subscribers, small businesses
and government, using a variety of platforms. As the biggest
communication company in East and Central Africa, Safaricom delights
over 21 million subscribers, providing over 200,000 touch points for its
customers and offering over 100 different products under its portfolio.
With annual revenues in excess of Kshs 100 Billion, Safaricom invested
Kshs 27.78 billion in infrastructure this year, providing over half of
Kenya’s population with 3G coverage and providing 2G coverage to 90% of
Kenyans. Safaricom harnesses its proprietary fibre infrastructure, and
is in the process of building a dedicated enterprise business to provide
managed services to clients in the East African region. Safaricom
pioneered commercial mobile money transfer globally through M-PESA, the
most successful such service anywhere in the world. Launched in March
2007 as a money transfer service, M-PESA now has over 19 million
customers and over 81,000 Agent outlets countrywide.
About M-PESA FOUNDATION
Registered as a charitable trust in 2010, the M-PESA Foundation provides
grants for the implementation of large-scale, long-term projects in the
areas of health, environmental conservation, education and integrated
water projects. To date, the M-PESA Foundation has implemented a range
of maternal health projects in partnership with Amref Health Africa, and
several other partners; bio diversity conservation in the Nairobi
National Park and the Mau Eburu Ecosystem; major infrastructural
improvements for Starehe Girls Centre, a leading girls school that
focuses on providing educational opportunities for bright girls from
needy backgrounds and Kenya Red Cross Society, to implement an
integrated water project in Kwale County. The Foundation also supports
initiatives that integrate technology for good.
About Mezzanine
Mezzanine is a subsidiary of Vodacom, based out of the Vodacom Business
Africa hub in Johannesburg. Mezzanine is managed by a team of dedicated
engineers and business analysts that have been working together for the
last eight years to create solutions for mobile health and agriculture
in Africa. Mezzanine delivers access to a range of mobile business
services by leveraging the communication infrastructure made available
by mobile network companies across Africa. Partnering with in-country
mobile network companies enables Mezzanine to deliver enterprise
services beyond those available from traditional ICT systems. Mezzanine
currently powers deployments in South Africa, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria
and Tanzania.
Contacts:
Accenture
Sam Hyland, + 917-452-5184
samuel.hyland@accenture.com
Source: Accenture
© 2024 Canjex Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.