Malawi Program Profile

The Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector (SHOPS) project implemented a four-year program funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) from January 2012 to September 2015 in Malawi. The program had four overarching goals: improve the enabling environment for the private sector to ensure improved access to quality health care services, strengthen the capacity of nonprofit health facilities to deliver priority services in a sustainable manner; increase the role of the commercial sector in delivering priority health services, and increase the demand for diarrhea prevention and treatment products and services. This profile presents the goals, components, results, and the following lessons learned from the SHOPS program in Malawi.

• The overall health system benefits when the private sector is included in national plans, regulatory frameworks, and training programs.
• Public and private providers can be trained together, efficiently increasing the skills of both, while strengthening linkages between them.
• Commercial providers respond positively to coordination efforts.
• Thinking broadly about private providers taps into a diverse set of stakeholders who can contribute to development goals.