Save the Children Wins $54 Million USAID Award to Support the Government of Niger to Improve Health, Family Planning, and Nutrition Outcomes

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Kulawa activity is a five-year (2020-2025) award to support the Government of Niger in improving health, family planning, and nutrition outcomes in the Maradi, Zinder, and Tillaberi regions. Meaning care in the Hausa language, Kulawa will collaborate with the Ministry of Health, local government, providers, and communities to implement activities that will reach 1.4 million women of reproductive age, 1.1 million children under five years old, and 2.6 million youth ages 15-35.

Kulawa is part of USAID’s Resilience in the Sahel Enhanced (RISE) project, which supports vulnerable communities in Niger to effectively prepare for and manage recurrent crises and pursue sustainable pathways out of poverty.

Building on prior USAID investments, Kulawa will provide technical assistance and capacity development support to institutions to strengthen health systems and improve the quality of service delivery in communities, deepen government leadership and ownership of the health system, and empower community-led solutions that improve health care quality, coverage, use, and accountability. USAID Kulawa will focus on critical interventions that link the local population to health and nutrition services and constraints that impede social agency and service use. Kulawa will work with local organizations that are committed to strengthening health and nutrition outcomes for local populations, including women and youth.

To implement the USAID Kulawa activity, Save the Children leads a team of partners with more than two decades of collective experience in Niger, blending global technical leadership with local capacity, credibility, and reach.

• Save the Children in maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health; nutrition; water, sanitation, and hygiene; social and behavior change; capacity strengthening; gender; and monitoring and evaluation;
• Pathfinder International in family planning; gender; facility quality improvement; and digital health;
• PRONTO International in capacity strengthening and team training approaches to improve quality of care;
• Viamo in advancing contextually appropriate mobile applications for social and behavior change, audio job aids, and monitoring and evaluation; and
• Local partners in strengthening and applying their capacity to plan, manage, and implement activities to improve health.