Despite one in every three facility births occurring in private facilities in India, efforts to improve the quality of maternal health around the time of birth have largely focused on public health facilities in the country.

Manyata, a certification programme with both quality improvement and assurance components, is designed to strengthen quality of maternal health services in private facilities. Since its launch in 2013, Manyata has developed a viable business model for quality assurance and laid the groundwork for sustainable quality improvement efforts in the private maternal health care sector in India. The programme, now in its third phase, is implemented in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Maharashtra by Jhpiego and in Rajasthan, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu by other partners.

This webinar shared Manyata’s approach to initiate a private sector endeavour and develop a successful public-private partnership for quality of care, the value it provided for private providers to invest in quality of care, and its plan to expand its activities to other states. A representative of the Government of Maharashtra  also explained how the state government plays a critical role to ensure private facilities adopt standards of care under the LaQshya-Manyata initiative.

This is the third webinar in a series on ‘ Engaging the private sector for quality maternal, newborn and child health care’, co-organized by the Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and the World Health Organization.

Photo:© UNICEF/UNI173763/Altaf Qadri