Kampala, Uganda (3 September 2019): Living Goods received a 700,000 EUR grant from the Bayer Foundation today to innovate and scale the delivery of high-quality, tech-enabled women’s health and family planning services across Uganda. The funding is part of Bayer’s ongoing $20 million program, which aims to build an entire social innovation ecosystem around 100 million African smallholder farmers and their family members by 2030.

Over two years, the €700,000 grant from Bayer will enable Living Goods to digitally empower up to 350 Community Health Workers (CHWs) in Uganda to provide lifesaving care to a total of 280,000 people in need. Living Goods will provide CHWs with digital mHealth tools and provide Ugandan women with a wide array of family planning options, including condoms, oral contraceptives, and the injectable DMPA-SC—effective for three months—along with referrals for longer-term options. These services will build on the holistic suite of maternal, neonatal and child health care services. Living Goods-supported CHWs already provide these services in 19 Ugandan districts, including supporting women throughout their pregnancies and reducing mortality for children under age 5 by assessing and treating illnesses such as pneumonia, diarrhea, and malaria.

“We are grateful that partners like Bayer Foundation see the immense value of investing in the scale-up of family planning services, particularly in a country like Uganda,” said Liz Jarman, Living Goods’ Chief Executive Officer. “Family planning services have been shown to markedly improve health outcomes for women and children, while also enabling women to have greater agency in their childbearing decisions.”

Uganda has one of the highest unmet needs for family planning in sub-Saharan Africa, with only 28.5% of women using modern contraceptives. Low usage rates contribute to a range of maternal and neonatal health challenges.

The Bayer Foundation supports organizations in Africa such as Living Goods, myAgro, Mercy Corps and Path to scale up their innovative agricultural and health initiatives within smallholder farming communities. The four awardees received funding of $3 million over the next five years.

“With our funding, we aim to provide health and agricultural expertise and services to smallholder farmer communities,” said Monika Lessl, Executive Director of the Bayer Foundation, speaking at Bayer’s first Social Innovation Day, which convened social entrepreneurs, NGOs, corporations, funders, government representatives and academia in Berlin to build partnerships (more information at www.bayersocialinnovation.com).

Monika Lessl added: “The support will enable smallholder farmers to further develop their entrepreneurial ideas, create jobs and increase their income. This can only be achieved in a systems’ approach, which is why we are building an inclusive ecosystem of cross-sector partnerships.”

For more information, please contact:

Living Goods:

Emilie Chambert | Uganda Country Director, Living Goods

Email: echambert@livinggoods.org

Lisa McCandless | Chief Development Officer, Living Goods

Email: lmccandless@livinggoods.org

Bayer:

Alexander Hennig | Innovations Communicator, Bayer Foundation

Phone: +49 214 30 57526 | Email: alexander.hennig@bayer.com

About Living Goods

Founded in 2007, Living Goods is a nonprofit that aims to save lives at scale by supporting digitally empowered community health workers. We work with governments and partners to leverage smart mobile technology, rigorously strengthen performance, and relentlessly innovate to cost-effectively deliver high quality, impactful health services. At the end of 2018, Living Goods was supporting nearly 9,000 CHWs to deliver care to more than 7.1 million people. For more information, visit www.livinggoods.org

About Bayer Foundation

The Bayer Foundation’s mission is to identify, foster and scale the brightest minds and the best ideas in science and social innovation to help provide impactful solutions for the world’s biggest challenges in health and agriculture. The nexus between frontier research and the entrepreneurial spirit of social innovation lies within Bayer’s purpose “Science For A Better Life”. Bayer Foundation’s recognition awards and support programs honor world-class scientific research, and also support young academic talents. Beyond large scale projects with powerful globally active organizations, Bayer Foundation also supports social-impact startups and passionate social entrepreneurs. For more information, go to https://www.bayer.com/