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How does a multi-country, multilateral network focused on specific health care improvements evolve and what shapes its ability to achieve its goals?
Project Summary
To tackle a shared low- and middle-income country need for improved labour, childbirth and newborn care, the World Health Organisation and global partners are pursuing a 'global network' approach called The Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (QCN).
Their aim is for countries to learn from each other about which approaches to improving quality of care may work best in which circumstances to achieve shared health outcome goals. The QCN aims to promote coordination between partners while emphasising country ownership and leadership, and shared learning.
This project evaluated the emergence, legitimacy and effectiveness of this multi-lateral multi-country purposefully created implementation-focused network to improve the quality of care for maternal, newborn and child health.
We studied the QCN global level, and national and local levels, as well as the global-national and national-local level, in four diverse case study countries: Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi and Uganda.
This research project examined the QCN theory of change and explored how country level impacts are created.
Via a multi-disciplinary mixed methods programme of work, this research drew on theories concerning: network organisation and structure, emergence and effectiveness of networks, the policy process (agenda-setting, formulation, decision-making, implementation and evaluation), the nature of power and agency in relation to structure, and diffusion of innovation.
Key Project Information
Dates: January 2019 to June 2022, publications: 2023-2025
Principal Investigator: Prof Tim Colbourn
Status: Current
Partners: Diabetic Association of Bangladesh DABBD (Bangladesh), Ethiopia Public Health Institute (EPHI), Parent and Child Health Initiative PACHI (Malawi), Makerere University (Uganda), John Hopkins University (USA), University of Oxford (UK), London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (UK).
Location: Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi, Uganda
Funding: Medical Research Council
Contact: t.colbourn@ucl.ac.uk
- Research Team
Institute for Global Health
- Tim Colbourn
- Nehla Djellouli
- Kasonde Mwaba
- Callie Daniels-Howell
BADAS-PCP Bangladesh
- Kishwar Azad
- Abdul Kuddus
- Kohenour Akter
- Fatama Khatun
- Mithun Sarker
Parent and Child Health Initiative, Malawi
- Charles Makwenda
- Kondwani Mwandira
- Albert Dube
- Gladson Monjeza
- Rachel Magaleta
- Zabvuta Moffolo
Independant researchers, South Africa
- Mary Kinney
- Fidele Mukinda
Oxford University
- Mike English
Johns Hopkins University, USA
- Yusra Shawar
- Will Payne
- Jeremy Shiffman
Makerere University, Uganda
- Gloria Seruwagi
- Kathy Lubowa
- Agnes Kyamulabi
- Hilda Namakula
Ethiopia Public Health Institute (funded via a grant to LSHTM to Tanya Marchant)
- Geremew Gonfa
- Seble Abreham
- Anene Tesfa
- Asebe Amenu
- Theodros Getachew
LSHTM, UK
- Tanya Marchant
Publications
PLOS Global Public Health QCN Evaluation collection with commentaries: The Quality of Care Network (QCN) collection
Configurations and interactions (social network analysis): Individual interactions in a multi-country implementation-focused quality of care network for maternal, newborn and child health: A social network analysis
Theory of change: Evaluating theory of change to improve the functioning of the network for improving quality of care for maternal, newborn and child health
Individual, organisational, and system circumstances: Individual, organizational and system circumstances, and the functioning of a multi-country implementation-focused network for maternal, newborn and child health: Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Uganda
Innovation, learning and sharing: Do global health networks facilitate innovation, learning and sharing? A qualitative analysis of the Quality-of-Care Network in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Uganda
Our experiences evaluating the QCN: How to evaluate a multi-country implementation-focused network: Reflections from the Quality of Care Network (QCN) evaluation
PLOS Blog: Evaluating the Quality of Care Network – what have we learned?
WHO commentary: Building a Sustainable Future: Lessons from the evaluation of the Quality of Care Network for improving maternal, newborn and child health
QCN Evaluation Collection Launch Seminar
This seminar marks the launch of the collection of peer reviewed papers published in PLOS Global Public Health on the independent evaluation of the Quality of Care Network for improving maternal, newborn, and child health. The seminar is led by Professor Tim Colbourn.