Accelerating Maternal & Child Health Outcomes Project

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Despite health services being provided free of charge in Bhutan, the poor and the vulnerable have not fully benefitted from the health investments made by the Royal Government of Bhutan as there is in suboptimal utilization of essential services among this population. Assessments conducted in the country have identified economic and financial barriers as key constraints to the utilization of essential services, e.g. costs associated with travel, loss of income due to a facility visit, etc.To address this constraint and incentivize the use of essential health and nutrition services, the project intends to provide social and behavior change communications (“SBCC”) support at the national, facility, community and household levels through information, education and communication, and social mobilization, together with conditional cash transfers (CCT) for socially and economically vulnerable pregnant and lactating women (PLW).These services are essential for improving maternal, neonatal and child health outcomes. CCT would be provided to selected PLW via direct electronic deposit to individual bank accounts during the "Golden 1,000 Days" period (approximately 33 months) following a predefined calendar of health visits. CCT beneficiaries would receive benefits from the detection of pregnancy until the child turns two years of age, subject to compliance with pre-defined co-responsibilities/conditionalities, which include antenatal and postnatal check-ups, institutional delivery, birth registration, child growth monitoring and promotion, and immunization of children under two.