Building Resilient Community Health Systems

With 76% of Uganda’s population living in rural areas, many communities lack access to basic healthcare. Living Goods started its community health program in Uganda in 2007. Since then, we have partnered with the government of Uganda to improve the reach and impact of community-based healthcare. Today, we support over 2,400 community health workers (CHWs)—locally known as Village Health Teams (VHTs)—reaching 1.4 million Ugandans with essential healthcare services.

Living Goods has historically operated across 19 Ugandan districts, and many more through our former partner BRAC. In recent years, we shifted our strategy, aiming to deepen our impact in fewer geographies rather than spread ourselves thinly across many. Our goal is to saturate our geographies of focus to demonstrate improved health outcomes while increasingly providing technical assistance to the government to ensure sustainability of the community health program.

Living Goods also supports the government in developing facilitative policies, budgets, and operational frameworks for community health, and in building a digital system to centralize and enable data use for decision-making. The ultimate goal is an integrated, government-owned community health system that improves health outcomes at scale.

Our Locations

Digitizing Community Health

With over eight years’ experience developing and deploying digital health solutions in Uganda, Living Goods has influenced the development of progressive policies around digital health to improve health outcomes at scale. Today, we serve alongside others in the ecosystem as a lead partner to the MoH in rolling out an electronic community health information system (eCHIS) in several districts.

Building on a Living Goods-supported pilot and our work to co-develop the eCHIS Central Product Roadmap, the MoH selected Living Goods to lead eCHIS rollout in six districts. While designed to be implemented over a one-year period, Living Goods successfully executed the rollout in three months — from October to December 2023.

Impact of Our Work in Uganda

Strengthening the Community Health Enabling Environment

Living Goods works closely with the government of Uganda to strengthen the community health system and create a conducive policy environment for CHWs to operate. At the national level, Living Goods supports the development of policies that enhance the package of services CHWs provide for effective health programs and mobilizes funding for nationwide implementation. For example, Living Goods collaborated with the government to develop its inaugural National Community Health Strategy, which emphasizes the effectiveness of digitized, well-supplied, supervised, and compensated CHWs in promoting good health. Living Goods has remained committed to supporting the government in mobilizing resources against the strategy and implementing it at the community level since its launch in May 2023.

At the district level, Living Goods supports government adoption and implementation of community health strategies and plans, including by facilitating internal discussions, endorsements, and costing needed to make these a reality. At both national and sub-national levels, Living Goods further works to strengthen supply chains to increase the availability of essential commodities, focusing on forecasting, quantification, commodity quality, and rational utilization.

Implementing High-Impact Health Interventions

Living Goods supports CHWs to go door-to-door in their communities addressing critical health issues. CHWs focus on the health areas where they can make the greatest impact at the lowest cost, including prevention and treatment for common childhood illnesses like diarrhea, malaria, and pneumonia, supporting healthy pregnancies, family planning, and tracking nutrition and immunization statuses.

By implementing the DESC approach, Living Goods connects hard-to reach communities with high-quality health services — creating immediate, life-changing impact. This impact was validated by a 2013 RCT on our program, which demonstrated a 27% reduction in under-five mortality.

Our Projects

Funded by Global Fund, with technical support from Africa Frontline First and Last Mile Health, BIRCH is implemented in several sub-Saharan countries, including Uganda, to provide technical assistance to the MoH to strengthen their community health programming and pandemic preparedness. The MoH selected Living Goods to lead the implementation of Project BIRCH. In Uganda, the project focuses on creating the necessary strategies, structures, and support for CHW programs to deliver high-quality health services.

Living Goods is spearheading efforts to strengthen partner coordination, craft crucial strategic documents such as the Village Health Team (VHT) Revitalization Strategy and Community Health Extension Workers (CHEWs) Strategy, lead assessments to identify gaps in the community health sector and formulate planning frameworks. Through this project, Uganda’s community health system is set to become more resilient, sustainable, and adaptive to evolving health needs.

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