Memorandum of Understanding: Alliance for School-Based Deworming

Marshall, Jr. Family Foundation (The Marshall Foundation) have formed an alliance to catalyze the widespread scaling and replication of sustainable school-based deworming programs for at-risk children living in endemic geographies. The alliance aims to reduce worm-related morbidity in children and prevent further re-infection by establishing national and/or state-level school-based deworming programs in endemic countries. Infection with schistosomes and soil-transmitted helminths (parasitic worms) can lead to anemia, malnutrition, impaired mental and physical development, and reduced school participation. While medications to treat worms are readily available and easily administered, over 400 million at-risk children remain untreated. School-based mass distribution of deworming treatment is an innovative and cost-effective approach to improving children's health and education, with the potential to benefit the majority of untreated, at-risk children globally at an annual cost of less than US$0.60 per child. The alliance has set two primary objectives: to sustain the gains of the government-led deworming program in Kenya, leading to 20 million child-years of deworming, and to foster the development of 4-6 additional national-scale school-based deworming programs in endemic countries, with a view to leveraging treatment and prevention of worm infection in 20-30 million at-risk children. The programmatic activity to achieve this objective will involve providing on-the-ground coordination to support program initiation, including prevalence surveys, cultivating linkages between the education and health sectors, and coordination with all relevant stakeholders to build policy and financial commitments toward deworming. USAID will bring technical expertise, policy influence, and in-country relationships to the alliance, and will provide up to US$5.23 million in support to enable school-based deworming programs to expand across multiple countries. CJFF will fund up to $12.8 million towards the costs of implementing and institutionalizing a national school-based deworming program in Kenya over 5 years, and will galvanize additional support for school-based deworming through activities that will include networking with other funders to attract complementary investments. The Marshall Foundation will contribute $1.2 million in funding toward the costs of activities required to initiate and manage sustainable school-based deworming programs in multiple countries. The alliance will be managed through a Steering Committee, which will be responsible for the selection of countries and oversight of the activities of the implementing partner, Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA). The Steering Committee will comprise representatives from USAID, CJFF, and The Marshall Foundation, and will meet regularly to review progress and make decisions on the implementation of the alliance's objectives.