Mission

Our mission is to support the reduction of maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity in developing countries. We will do this by applying the expertise developed by Immpact within the context of global reproductive health goals.

"Improving maternal health is one of the eight Millennium Development Goals. Achieving safer motherhood needs resources to be focused on health programmes making the biggest difference. Identifying these effective programmes and the progress made requires robust enquiry through evaluations which provide crucial evidence to inform policy decision-making.

These complex evaluations need a mixture of enquiry methods and tools to piece together the story of programme design, implementation and progress. The technical skills required for this are often in short supply in resource-poor countries, and external assistance is frequently needed.

The purpose of Ipact is to facilitate robust evaluation of maternal health programmes through the provision of technical support. Borne out of Immpact - a global research initiative to improve the evidence-base for safe motherhood - Ipact is able to draw upon our experience of major evaluations conducted during the first four years of the initiative. It will deliver technical support in accordance with three core values: delivering best practice in evaluation, building local technical capacity, and ensuring evidence is shared.

Ipact is ultimately driven by a higher level goal - safer motherhood for all. We look forward to collaborating with countries and agencies in pursuit of this goal."

Professor Wendy J Graham
University of Aberdeen