2022 award winners

These inaugural awards celebrate countries’ achievements made in 2022.

Best malaria scorecard tool

About this category

This award recognises the best use of malaria scorecard tools in the fight against malaria, focusing on:

Zambia – winner of the 2022 best malaria scorecard tool award

The Republic of Zambia are the winners of the 2022 best malaria scorecard tool award.

Zambia uses their national malaria scorecard to generate and track actions through existing accountability and coordination mechanisms at national and subnational levels.

Zambia uses the Scorecard Web Platform’s Workplan Manager to provide their National Malaria Elimination Programme and national End Malaria Council access to real-time information for decision making. The introduction of the Workplan Manager allowed Zambia to improve its operational plan’s implementation rate from 36% (achieved at the end of the 6-year implementation of the national malaria strategic plan in 2016) to 81% (at the end of 2019).

Video about Zambia’s use of the malaria scorecard tool

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Best RMNCAH (reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health) scorecard tool

About this category

This award recognises the best use of RMNCAH scorecard tools, focusing on:

Kenya – winner of the 2022 best RMNCAH scorecard tool award

The Republic of Kenya are the winners of the 2022 best RMNCAH scorecard tool award.

The country has decentralised their RMNCAH scorecard down to county-level and shares the scorecard with key country partners at national, county and health facility levels.

At the county-level, the scorecard is used extensively in existing accountability mechanisms such as county performance review meetings and sub-county data review meetings. In these meetings, the scorecard is reviewed, and actions are generated and entered into the Scorecard Web Platform’s Action Tracker. The Kenya RMNCAH scorecard is also linked to the country’s DHIS2 system which makes it easier to update the scorecard with the latest data.

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Best NTD (neglected tropical disease) scorecard tool

About this category

This award recognises the best use of NTD scorecard tools, focusing on:

Republic of the Congo – winner of the 2022 best NTD scorecard tool award

The Republic of the Congo are the winners of the 2022 best NTD scorecard tool award.

The Republic of the Congo NTD scorecard tool is included in the Ministry of Health’s semestral and annual reports, and shared with all ministry departments, districts and partners. From 2020, the scorecard helped the national NTD programme mobilise additional funds from the government.

Video about Republic of the Congo’s use of the NTD scorecard tool

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Best community scorecard tool

About this category

This award recognises the best use of community scorecard tools. The community scorecard is a participatory tool used to:

  • collect feedback from community members to assess the quality of care
  • increase accountability
  • inform actions to improve local health services
  • enhance community ownership and engagement

Ethiopia – winner of the 2022 best community scorecard tool award

The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia are the winners of the 2022 best community scorecard tool award.

Ethiopia’s community scorecard was initiated in 2017 and has since been introduced to 55% of districts in the country – across all 10 regions.

The community scorecard monitors 2 of the ministry of health’s flagship initiatives:

  • Woreda (District) Transformation Programme
  • Primary Health Care Improvement Programme

The scorecard has been used to gain technical and financial support, including increased contributions from community members.

In Amhara region, for example, the community purchased ambulances – with a matching contribution from the regional authorities.

The scorecard has also led to significant service delivery improvements. For example, in the West Gojjam Zone, 95% of health centres either had new maternity rooms built or existing ones improved.Ethiopia’s community scorecard is now fully integrated into existing ministry of health management and accountability processes and is decentralised and community owned.

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Best institutionalisation of scorecard tools across malaria and RMNCAH

About this category

This award recognises countries that have made a consistent effort to institutionalise and mainstream scorecard tools into existing management processes at all levels (to subnational levels) and across vertical programmes (a programme focused on a specific condition or small group of health problems).

Rwanda – winner of the 2022 best institutionalisation of scorecard tools award

The Republic of Rwanda are the winners of the 2022 best institutionalisation of scorecard tools award.

Rwanda has regularly taken innovative approaches to their scorecard use, such as their integrated malaria and NTD scorecard, along with their RMNCAH scorecard.

The two scorecards are identified in the country’s strategic plan as key performance and management tools to track progress of indicators linked to their priorities. For increased accountability, both scorecards are published publicly on the ALMA Scorecard Hub.

The scorecards are produced directly in Rwanda’s DHIS2 (the country’s district health management information system). They are also discussed at several national and sub-national meetings, including:

  • senior management meetings of the Ministry of Health and Rwanda Biomedical Centre
  • district coordination meetings

The scorecards are discussed at the technical working groups with various partners and stakeholders to identify underperformance. Actions are then taken to improve the performance and documented to help the country assess the progress being made. Rwanda is also using the scorecard tools in staff supervision meetings to encourage evidence-based supervision, including recognition of good performance and follow-up for areas of under-performance.

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Best innovative use of scorecard tools

About this category

This award recognises countries that have used scorecard tools in innovative ways. This includes using new processes or approaches to further institutionalise scorecard tools to enhance decision making at all levels by:

  • providing decision makers with timely and relevant data
  • ensuring all citizens have access to data so they can be empowered to improve health services

To recognise a wide range of innovation in scorecard use, we are celebrating 2 award winners in this category.

Winners of the 2022 best innovative use of scorecard tools

Republic of Ghana

The Republic of Ghana are one of the 2 winners of the 2022 best innovative use of scorecard tools award.

Ghana is the first country to include quality of care community-generated data into DHIS2 – their health management information system. By incorporating this community data into DHIS2, Ghana has enabled:

  • more stakeholders to access the data from across the country
  • aggregation of community data to produce sub-district, district, regional and national figures
  • the production of colour-coded scorecards on the Scorecard Web Platform

In 2021, UNICEF supported the country’s efforts to link scorecard tools to Ghana’s New Social Accountability Agenda. As part of these efforts, scorecard tools were integrated into the planning and budgeting process at district assemblies.

The New Social Accountability Agenda is designed to increase demand for transparency and accountability by citizens in the use of public resources. The Ghana Health Service identified the community scorecard as a tool that could improve citizen participation in this process.

The community scorecard helps these efforts by providing district assembly members with insight into community priorities. The community scorecard’s focus on diverse participation of gender and socio-economic backgrounds makes sure all voices are heard. National malaria and RMNCAH scorecards are also used in this process to help district assemblies prioritise communities that have the lowest health outcome performance.

United Republic of Tanzania

The United Republic of Tanzania are one of the 2 winners of the 2022 best innovative use of scorecard tools award.

Tanzania has used scorecard tools in innovative ways by:

  • training members of parliament (MPs) on scorecard use
  • translating scorecards into the local language
  • developing a mobile app to enable MPs to access data from their personal devices

Tanzania’s National Malaria Control Programme and the President’s Office for Regional Administration and Local Government trained 150 members of parliament on how to access and interpret malaria scorecard data. This training helped MPs to understand the malaria situation in their constituencies and to be in a better position to support the fight against malaria. The country also developed an indicator guide to teach MPs about key health and malaria terms that they might not know.

To ensure as many people could use the scorecard tool, Tanzania was the first country to translate the scorecard into the local language on the Scorecard Web Platform. This helped increase the reach of the scorecard and drive further accountability.

Tanzania also worked with ALMA to develop a mobile app for smartphones and tablets to allow MPs access to scorecard data from their personal devices. This app lets MPs quickly access the data from anywhere with an internet connection. Tanzania also trained the MPs’ information technology officers so they could support MPs with any app-related issues.