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Project Summary
Engaging citizens and communities to make services accountable is vital听to achieving health development goals. Community participation in听health management committees can increase public accountability of听health services. We conducted a cluster randomised controlled trial to听test the impact of strengthened health management committees (HMCs)听and community mobilisation through women's groups, on institutional听deliveries and deliveries by a trained health worker in rural Nepal.
The听study was conducted in all Village Development Committee clusters in听the hilly district of Makwanpur, Nepal (population of 420,500). In 21听clusters intervention clusters we conducted three-day workshops with听HMCs to improve their capacity for planning and action, and supported听female community health volunteers to run 203 women's groups. These听groups met once a month and mobilised communities to address听barriers to institutional delivery. We compared this intervention with听22 control clusters.