Modelling the number of maternal and neonatal lives saved by governance and accountability programmes. A methodology.

Improving accountability for commitments made in maternal and neonatal health has become a global priority in the race to accelerate progress on MDGs 4 and 5. At a time when tax-payers are also demanding strong, quantitative evidence that aid programmes represent value for money, new methods to attribute tangible impact to such accountability programmes are required. Conducting this type of analysis is challenging for accountability programmes. The outcomes of accountability activities are not easily quantifiable and the overall approach is still in the process of building an evidence-base.

In this article, we describe a methodology to project the number of maternal and neonatal lives saved by a programme aiming to strengthen accountability for MNH. Extensive evidence on the effectiveness of various bio-medical interventions for maternal and neonatal health has been incorporated within the Lives Saved Tool (LiST) software, developed by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Our method extends the application of LiST beyond its bio-medical scope by assuming that greater accountability, through the more efficient use of health resources, causes a proportional increase in the coverage of all life-saving MNH services.