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This article is part of an online debate series on mobile health by the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, Johnson Johnson, the mHealth Alliance, Impatient Optimists and Forbes.com.

Dr. Ariel Pablos-Méndez is the Assistant Administrator for Global Health at USAID.

Last year, USAID launched a new policy on Gender Equality and Female Empowerment  to address the challenges of gender inequality in political participation, economic markets, education and health.  The policy underscores a critical premise: that equal participation of women and girls in society leads to more effective and sustainable health and development outcomes.   Since then, USAID has strengthened and expanded its implementation of gender analyses, programming and common indicators to address and measure gender disparities, reduce gender-based violence and increase the capability of women and girls to determine their life outcomes and influence decision-making in households, communities and societies. While we continue to strengthen our ability to measure and improve gender inequality and outcomes, we know there are still many challenges to overcome. In health, gender-based power imbalances contribute to excess female mortality across the life cycle, while harmful gender norms can affect the health of women and children by limiting their health-seeking behavior.  These gender inequalities must be addressed if we are to end preventable child and maternal deaths and meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5.

To find innovative solutions to these persistent challenges, USAID is investing in new tools and technologies to improve the lives of women, girls and their families. Information and communications technology, in particular, has immense potential to improve health-seeking behavior, connect underserved populations to critical health services and improve the performance and efficiency of health workers throughout the system.  Our investments in mobile technology for health (mHealth) and information technology for health (eHealth) are designed to improve equity, access, quality and efficiency of health systems, and can be broadly categorized into three areas:  information, commodities and services.

Health Information

USAID has invested in the development of mHealth information services to improve health behaviors and increase demand for health services. Services such as MAMA, CycleTel and M4RH, educate and empower women and men with critical information on family planning, reproductive health, pregnancy, labor and delivery, child care, and nutrition.  The power of these services is that they are delivered directly to women’s hands, and in most cases, the information is customized to the needs of the subscriber.  For example, MAMA subscribers register their due date when they subscribe and the service delivers timely information on pregnancy and child care, customized to the stage of pregnancy or the age of the child.  CycleTel helps women take charge of their reproductive health by enabling them to track their fertility status during each menstrual cycle.  In other services, such as M4RH, the information is available through a menu-driven platform and users can select what information they would like to read.  M4RH is an on-demand, text-message based service that provides information about contraceptives and locations of nearby clinic services. Under our Grand Challenges for Development partnership, Saving Lives at Birth, we are investing in the development of Baby Monitor, an interactive voice response technology that takes clinical screening directly to women in the critical period before and after birth in order to detect complications and take action.

We have partnered with social entrepreneurs, technologists and public health practitioners to design these services for scale, by investing in the development of business models and market-based approaches to commercialize these services and sustain our investments.

Health Commodities

Around the world, USAID is investing in scalable solutions to improve the efficiency of health commodity supply chains.  For example, USAID is partnering with the United Nations Commission on Life-Saving Commodities, the Rockefeller Foundation, PATH and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to support the roll-out of OpenLMIS, an open source logistics management information system that will enable health managers to track and control the flow of health commodities.   Through OpenLMIS and similar applications, using a combination of computers, mobile phones, SMS messages and GPS mapping, we now have the power to track stock levels in ‘real-time’, enabling decision-makers to take swift action to decrease stock-outs and increase access to essential medicines and commodities.  mHealth applications for supply chains also help reduce fraud, minimize theft and leakage, improve the detection of substandard and counterfeit products, and help extend the reach of supply chains to the ‘last mile’. For a woman who relies on contraception to avert unintended pregnancies, or a woman in need of maternal health drugs such as magnesium sulfate and misoprostol, to newborns in need of resuscitation devices, transparent and efficient supply chains are critical to ensuring that women have continuous access to lifesaving commodities at the exact time and place where they need them.

Health Services

To improve health services, USAID invests in a number of areas, including the development of essential human resource capacity. Frontline health workers around the world are the first and often the only link to health services, particularly among underserved and vulnerable populations.  USAID is investing in the development of mobile solutions that empower health workers and improve their ability to efficiently educate, diagnose, treat and refer patients.  Last June, together with a diverse set of public and private partners, we launched mPowering Frontline Health Workers at theChild Survival Call to Action, to improve the skills and performance of frontline workers, the vast majority of whom are women.  Through theDevelopment Innovation Ventures program, we are investing in CommCare, an integrated mHealth platform that improves the ability of health workers to manage and counsel patients.

We know that investing in women and girls has tremendous impact on the health and economy of a society. Through our investments in mHealth and eHealth programs and partnerships, USAID brings many unique voices to the table to co-create innovative solutions. Across sectors, we work with initiatives such as the GSMA mWomen program and the Half the Skymovement. Working together with our partners, and listening to many voices, we will continue to invest in the creation of scalable solutions to address gender disparities through ICT and mobile technology, and improve the lives of women, girls and their families in resource-constrained settings around the world.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/skollworldforum/2013/05/23/mpowering-women-and-girls/