My Village My Home: Strengthening Routine Immunization in Malawi

Since 2011, in collaboration with Malawi's Ministry of Health (MOH), USAID's flagship programs for maternal and child health—Maternal and Child Health Integrated Program (MCHIP) and Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP)—have strengthened routine immunization in Dowa and Ntchisi (two low performing districts). One of the initiatives that has been used to do this is community monitoring of individual infants' vaccinations. Today, most of the villages in Dowa and Ntchisi, under the leadership of trained and empowered village heads and volunteers, actively track infants' immunization status using the My Village My Home tool introduced by MCSP in January 2016. Recent surveys conducted in the two districts indicate that over 98% of infants have been vaccinated. MCSP recommends gradually replicating the approach in other low performing districts. JSI leads MCSP's work in the areas of child health, immunization, and pediatric HIV. Our staff also contributes technically to MCSP’s cross-cutting functions of measurement, monitoring, evaluation and learning, community health, and health systems strengthening, with a focus on the strengthening of routine health information systems and supply chain management.