Scaling Free Maternal and Newborn Care: Government Initiatives in Mali

In August 2025, Mali’s Ministry of Health, through its Health System Strengthening Unit (UMRSS), and Muso signed a Memorandum of Understanding formalizing Muso’s role as the independent verification agent for a new Direct Health Facility Financing (DHFF) pilot, supported by the Global Fund.

Illustrative photo

The pilot, launched in December, covers 53 community health centers (37 in the Kayes region and 16 in Bamako) and aims to improve maternal and newborn health outcomes. Under DHFF, pregnant women (up to 42 days postpartum) and newborns (0–28 days) receive care free of charge, while facilities receive performance-based funding to strengthen service quality, medicine availability, and integrated maternal-newborn care. By channeling funds directly to facilities and linking payments to results, DHFF enhances accountability, removes financial barriers, and expands equitable access to essential services.

Muso will play an important role in ensuring the pilot’s success. Muso will verify whether the pilot achieves its intended results by confirming performance indicators, calculating subsidies for each health center, ensuring targeted patients received free care, following up on corrective actions, and submitting comprehensive verification reports to UMRSS. 

Early impact is already visible. Since the rollout of targeted free care, prenatal consultations have increased sharply, demonstrating the immediate effect of eliminating fees. For many women, access to care has been transformed – some now seek treatment with family support, while others no longer face permission barriers because cost is no longer an obstacle. 

This initiative marks a major milestone in protecting two of the most vulnerable populations (mothers and newborns) and represents the culmination of decades of Muso’s advocacy for rapid and equitable access to care. By tying financing to independently verified results, the DHFF pilot ensures that resources translate into real impact: saving lives, strengthening trust in the health system, and maximizing the effectiveness of public health investments.