The lowest-income residents of sub-Saharan Africa face more than their share of illness and disease. The region has 11 percent of the world’s population but 24 percent of the global disease burden.
An Abt Associates-led project is connecting health care entrepreneurs in Kenya and Ethiopia to funding and expert advice through the HANSHEP Health Enterprise Fund and networking events.
Improving health in the region is a challenge that must involve the private health sector. In countries such as Ethiopia and Kenya, the private sector provides health care to almost half of the poorest people.
At the same time, health care entrepreneurs in Africa face difficulties in putting their ideas and innovations into practice, despite the availability of micro-loans and technical assistance to, for example, expand health care services in difficult-to-reach areas or to develop low-cost IT platforms or more affordable health care devices.
A health care entrepreneur pitches his idea to Caroline Quijada, deputy director of the Abt Associates-led, USAID-funded Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector (SHOPS) project. SHOPS organized an expo in Nairobi for finalists of the HANSHEP Health Enterprise Fund, a challenge fund to provide financial and technical assistance to health care innovators in Kenya and Ethiopia. SHOPS also administers the challenge fund.
“A gap often exists between this start-up assistance and the large-scale funding provided by investors. This ‘missing middle’ is a significant obstacle to good ideas reaching wider audiences,” said Caroline Quijada, a principal associate in International Health at Abt Associates.
Ideas to Improve Health of the Poorest
To fill this gap, the Abt Associates-led, USAID-funded
Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector (SHOPS) project is administering the HANSHEP Health Enterprise Fund, a challenge fund to provide financial and technical assistance to these health care innovators. SHOPS is USAID’s flagship initiative in private sector health.
HANSHEP is a group of development agencies and countries, including USAID and DFID, established in 2010 to improve delivery of health care to the poor through collaboration among non-state actors. This SHOPS-administered challenge fund – which focuses on Ethiopia and Kenya – is being supported by USAID and the UK Department for International Development (DFID).
HANSHEP Health Enterprise Fund awardees will receive grants of up to $200,000 plus technical assistance and monitoring and evaluation support through September 2014.
SHOPS, which received 150 fund applications by the March 8th deadline, chose 55 finalists and expects to announce the HANSHEP fund recipients by the end of July. To qualify for the challenge fund, the applicant must:
- Be located in Ethiopia or Kenya or plan to expand there;
- Have a sustainable, scale-able, business model; and
- Address the poorest residents’ needs regarding family planning, reproductive health, maternal and child health, or HIV/AIDS.
Susan Edwards of the Abraaj Group, a leading investor in growth markets, speaks to a health care entrepreneur at an expo in Nairobi for finalists for the HANSHEP Health Enterprise Fund, a challenge fund to provide financial and technical assistance to health care innovators in Kenya and Ethiopia. The networking event was organized by the Abt Associates-led, USAID-funded Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector (SHOPS) project, which also administers the challenge fund.
Networking is Priceless
While the possibility of a $200,000 grant is attractive to the challenge fund applicants, the central goal of the HANSHEP fund is to create opportunities for collaboration and knowledge sharing among awardees, investors and the wider global health community.
With that in mind, SHOPS organized an expo for HANSHEP fund finalists in Nairobi on June 22. More than 100 health innovators, investors, and donors attended the expo to share knowledge and network.
The expo was one of the largest gatherings of private sector actors in health in Kenya for a long time, according to Bedan Gichanga, a USAID health systems specialist in Kenya.
“The networking here is worth more than the money," said Dr. Davis Musinguzi, managing director of the Medical Concierge Group, which is exploring the expansion of telephone consultations with health care providers in East Africa.
Bola Tafawa – general manager for health at the Equity Group Foundation, the charitable arm of Equity Bank Group – said she often thinks about how to reach the poorest residents and expand access to quality health services.
“It is great to meet other people that are kept up at night by the same problems,” Tafawa said.
