Mumbai, India, October 2023 –LGT Venture Philanthropy Foundation (LGT VP) is delighted to announce the extension of its engagement with ARMMAN, to support its ambitious 5-year strategy. The new 3-year contract will support ARMMAN’s plans to reach 70 million women in India by 2030, and contribute to reducing India’s maternal mortality rate (MMR) and infant mortality rate (IMR) by 20% over the next five years. ARMMAN’s position as a leading organization in maternal and child health in India, strong partnership with central and state governments, and a blended ‘tech plus touch’ model which combines technology with human interaction via frontline health workers, makes them well positioned to achieve these targets. LGT VP’s flexible core funding and non-financial support will allow ARMMAN to further strengthen the organization’s capabilities to deliver impact at scale, at quality and at cost.
A strong, professional, and forward-looking senior management team led by a visionary founder is at the core of ARMMAN’s success. Its founder, Dr. Aparna Hegde has played an important role in strengthening maternal and child health systems in India, while the CEO Ramesh Padmanabhan comes with over 25 years of experience in information technology and non-profit sector. They are backed by a seasoned team of professionals from both the development and for-profit sectors. As a result, ARMMAN has built a cultureof innovation and continuously improving its programs’ delivery, content, and engagement through technologies such as predictive analysis using AI, using WhatsApp as a means of two-way communication, etc.This has helped ARMMAN add immense value to the two government owned programs it has been operating since 2018 –Kilkari and Mobile Academy. Kilkari is the largest mobile-based maternal messaging program in the world and has supported over 38 million womenand children, while Mobile Academy has provided mobile-based refresher training to over 334,000 frontline health workers in India.
ARMMAN has kick-started its 5-year strategy (2023-2028) with an ambition to reach 70 million women by 2030 and contribute to reducing India’s MMR and IMR. ARMMAN will achieve the ambitious targets by enhancing the existing government m-Health systems with the support of its on-ground program team, scaling its high-risk pregnancy program to 5 key states in India, and using innovations such as using artificial intelligence and machine learning models to improve listenership of its programs.Tom Kagerer, Partner -LGT Venture Philanthropy, explains: “LGT VP’s Health Strategy aims at strengthening health organizations’ capacity to work in partnership with government on improving health outcomes. An important element of this strategy lies in the preventionof health issues through the dissemination of health knowledge and the promotion of
health seeking behavior in communities through highly scalable technology solutions. ARMMAN is doing exactly this, hence their solution is a critical pillar of LGT VP’s support in India.”Ramesh Padmanabhan, CEO of ARMMAN, echoes: “ARMMAN’s unique blended ‘tech plus touch’ model has proven to be replicable, scalable and cost effective. With our rich on-ground experience over the last decade and a half driving our strategies, we are now integrating gender transformative and equity-based approaches to our interventions. LGT VP’s deep understanding of our work, and their active support and guidance over the years have been instrumental in shaping our efforts to improve maternal and child healthin India. Their strong commitment to our cause empowers us to create and execute more inclusive programs which are empathetic towards the challenges faced by the women and the health workers, while we strive to achieve health equity.”
ARMMAN is a trust registered under Section 12 A of the Income Tax Act of 1961 and is a non-profit charitable organization. ARMMAN (Advancing Reduction InMortality And Morbidity Of Mothers, Children And Neonates) was founded in 2008 and leverages mHealth to create cost-effective, scalable, gender-transformative and equity-based, non-linear, systemic solutions to improve the health-seeking behaviour of pregnant women and mothers while building capacities of health workers to ensure efficient antenatal and childhood care, timely diagnosis, management and referral of high-risk pregnancies. The organization is currently working in 20 States of India, and has reached more than 41 million pregnant women, mothers and their children and trained over 334,000 health workers, towards reducing maternal and child mortality and morbidity. For more information, please visit www.armman.org.
LGT Venture Philanthropy (LGT VP) is an independent charitable foundation established in 2007 with partners in Switzerland, Sub-Saharan Africa, and India. The Foundation strives to improve the quality of life of people facing disadvantages, contribute to healthy ecosystems, and build resilient, inclusive, and prosperous communities. LGT VP focuses on strengthening the capabilities of locally rooted organizations that deliver effective, scalable solutions across health, education, and the environment contributing directly to the SDGs. For more information, please visit www.lgtvp.com.