Above & Beyond
Baylor College of Medicine Children’s Foundation-Uganda (BU) is a leading provider of Integrated, High-Quality, High Impact comprehensive HIV, TB, RMNCAH and global health security (GHS) services in Uganda.
Baylor Uganda is an indigenous, not-for-profit organization established in 2006,
Baylor Uganda has a long track record delivering strong return on investments with >USD 130 million donor funds efficiently managed.
We are affiliated with Baylor International Paediatric AIDS Initiative (BIPAI), a network of Paediatric HIV care and treatment at Children’s Clinical Centers of Excellence (COE).
Our technical program areas that include: Comprehensive HIV prevention and treatment; Global Health Security and Emergency Management; Reproductive Maternal Child and Adolescent Health; Health Systems Strengthening, Capacity building for health professionals and Research.A1
. Geographical Coverage and Programs
A1. Expertise to manage unique needs of subpopulations: We serve the general population (including partners in serodiscordant relationships and PBFW) with a focus on KP, PP, men, AGYW and children, to address gaps in case finding, retention and viral suppression. Baylor Uganda cares for 75% of all Uganda’s children and adolescents living with HIV: 14% at its Center of Excellence (COE) and 61% through its regional mechanisms.[1] Baylor Uganda implements the Men-stars (Male Champions) approach which uses influential men to identify and educate high-risk men in their communities and workplaces and link them to HIV services. Baylor Uganda also implemented the Key Population Investment Fund (KPIF) in partnership with KP-led/leaning civil society organizations (CSOs) that focus services to KP (FSW, MSM, TGW); and PP (fishing communities, highly mobile populations, etc.).
A2. Current and Past Experience: Since 2010, BU has successfully implemented the following programs (Table 1):
Baylor Uganda’s current and past experience in implementing comprehensive HIV/TB and Global Health Security projects
Grant | Donor/ Timeline/ Budget | Project Description |
1. Local Partner Health Services Eastern Activity (LPHS-EA) | Donor: USAID Project Period: Oct 2021-Oct 2026 | Region: Eastern; 15 districts and 1 city Coverage: 161 Health facilities (HFs) Population: General, focus on children, AGYW, men, and KP/PP. Approach: Supports districts/HFs/CBOs via DLP/HSS to increase access to quality comprehensive HIV services for epi control. |
2. Accelerating Epidemic Control in Fort Portal Region in the Republic of Uganda under PEPFAR (ACE–Fort project) COAG # 1NU2GGH002111 | Donor: CDC Project Period: Apr 2019-Sep 2023 | Region: Fortportal; 9 districts and 1 city Coverage: 151 HFs Population: General, with focus on children, AGYW, men, and KP/PP. Approach: Supports districts/HFs/CBOs through DLP and HSS approaches to increase access to quality comprehensive HIV services for epidemic control. |
3. Accelerating and Sustaining HIV Epidemic Control in Hoima Region in the Republic of Uganda | Donor: CDC Project Period: Sep 2020 – Oct 2025 | Region: Hoima in 8 districts and 1 city Coverage: 106 Health facilities Population: General population with focus on children, AGYW, men and women, and KP/PP Approach: Supports districts/HFs/CBOs via DLP/HSS to increase access to quality comprehensive HIV services for epidemic control. |
4. Global Fund /TASO HIV Project | Donor: Global Fund/TASO Project period: Jan 2021-Dec 2023 | Regions: Mid-West, Western, Central Coverage: 27 districts Population: AGYW, HIV+ pregnant and lactating women, fisher folk Approach: Community prevention intervention focusing on high burden and underserved locations and populations. |
5. Improving Health Security/ Building Intn’l Health Regulations core capacities in the Republic of Uganda Global Health Security | Donor: CDC Project Period: Sep 2020-Oct 2025 | Region: Western (Hoima) in 8 districts and Rwenzori in 9 districts Coverage: 17 districts Population: General population with a focus on public health emergencies |
6. Strengthening technical and management capacity of DLGs RMNCAH, WASH and education services in 10 districts in Western and East Central zones of Uganda | Donor: UNICEF Project Period: | Regions: Kampala at the BU COE; Rwenzori in 7 districts Coverage: 10 districts Population: General population (children and adolescents, women, refugees, caregivers). Approach: TA to MoH, districts using HSS to increase access/use of quality RMNCAH, WASH, education services. |
Baylor Uganda works with Ministry of Health Uganda, CDC, WHO and other IPs to strengthen prevention, detection and response to public health emergencies at national, regional, district and community levels. Our key expertise in GHS includes:
B.1. Core GHS capacity: Strengthening surveillance and laboratory systems including sentinel and community-based surveillance systems, antimicrobial resistance prevention, Border Health Security, mass vaccination support including microplanning and implementation, community mobilization and conducting population movement assessment across borders to inform surveillance systems.
B.2. Emergency response: Our team have capacity and have collaborated with MOH to conduct rapid risk assessments and situation analysis, support and deploy surge team, participate in IMT including in the different pillars, establish regional emergency operation centers and functionalize regional coordination mechanisms, support train and operationalize district rapid response teams, and train and coordinate emergency medical services. We also have capacity to support risk communication and community engagement during outbreaks and community-based disease surveillance and response. We also have capacity to support After Action Reviews and we are currently co-developing SIMEX with MOH, WHO and CDC.
Key successes:
Continuity of essential health services: We have capacity to support delivery of emergency medical outreach services to ensure continuity of care especially for the most vulnerable (children and mothers), and strength integrated community case management including strengthening surveillance for malnutrition among children. Below is an example of how we supported access to medical services in flood and landslide districts in Uganda, with WHO support:
Emergency Medical Outreaches (EMOs) and integrated Community Case Management (iCCM) in flood and landslide affected districts of Bududa, Sironko and Bundibugyo
Baylor Uganda with funding from WHO implemented a project to improve the treatment of Malaria, Pneumonia, and Diarrhoea among U5s, by VHTs, and extend essential medical services to hard-to-reach and underserved communities through iCCM and EMOs in flood and landslide affected Bundibugyo, Bududa, and Sironko districts. We worked with districts to establish the hard-to-reach and most affected sub-counties, and constitute 2 medical teams of 4 people each per district (clinical officer, lab, nurse/midwife and records officer). We conducted integrated PMTCT/EID and immunization outreaches to outreach sites and hard-to-reach villages. We also trained and provided required equipment, medicines and diagnostics to 1 VHT per village to provide iCCM (240 per district).
Saving Mothers Giving Life (SMGL): From 2012-2018, with funding from CDC, BU implemented the $16.6 million SMGL Proof of Concept and Project in Kabarol e, Kyenjojo, and Kamwenge districts. The objective was to reduce Maternal Mortality by 50% in the three districts, and to improve access to and utilization of quality obstetric and newborn care services. Key Successes included:
Strengthening technical and management capacity of District Local Governments for Reproductive, Maternal, New-born, Child, Adolescent Health (RMNCAH), WASH and education services in 10 districts in Western and East Central zones of Uganda (April 2021-June 2022): With funding from UNICEF, BU has supported ten districts (Mubende, Kasese, Kikuube, Isingiro, Ntungamo, Kamwenge, Kyegegwa, Tororo, Kamuli and Namayingo) to improve the quality of maternal and new-born care at primary healthcare level. Facilities implemented at least 3 interventions (labour and delivery care, Kangaroo mother care (KMC) and new-born resuscitation).
Key Successes:
Consultancy services for Clinical Skills Updates and Mentorship for RMNCAH (March-December 2022):
BU has to date facilitated training in Operative Obstetrics and SAFE anaesthesia;
HSS and District Led Programming (DLP): BU uses community and health systems strengthening to improve comprehensive HIV services across a facility-community continuum to reach the UNAIDS 95-95-95 targets
D1. Health service delivery: BU provides comprehensive HIV/AIDS services to all populations with a special focus on subpopulations with poorly performing indices, such as children, AGYW, KP, PP and men. Its community-facility bi-directional linkage framework model links HIV+ clients to health services.
BU has strengthened FSWs’ capacity for peer mobilization, case identification, and referral and linkage to health services, leading to improved adherence and stigma reduction. BU has recruited, trained, mentored 32 CSOs staff in Fort portal and Hoima regions and used referral maps to link each HF (252) to a CSO; This has led to >44,000 successful referrals every quarter.
Our Miles in HSST
Essential Commodities and new technologies
teams to monitor laboratory service quality and performance.. All 7 (100%) lab hubs in the Fort portal region have attained SANAS accreditation; 3) A College of American Pathologists certified laboratory at our COE that continues to maintain accreditation.
Health Management Information Systems (HMIS): Our M&E team trains and mentors DHTs/CSOs to use national and PEPFAR tools for planning. We have strong experience in project monitoring, Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) and data quality assessments and conduct monthly/ quarterly district review meetings to promote data us
Health Financing:
BU has managed >400 sub-grantees at district, municipality, HF, CBO, and PLHIV-network levels in 4 regions.
D5. Leadership and Governance: BU with Pepal (2015-2018), implemented ‘Caring Together’ project in all 8 Soroti and 9 Fortportal districts. BU trained frontline HWs on basic leadership tenets to improve HF functionality.
Health and Community Workforce: BU HW capacity building includes virtual training, blended virtual and in-person training (for practicum), onsite and remote mentorship, and support supervision.
BU has over a decade of experience implementing capacity building programs for health care workers in Uganda. BU has implemented this approach through collaborative work with the Ministry of Health and professional associations like the Association of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Uganda, Uganda Paediatrics Association, Uganda Private Midwives Association and the Uganda Society of Anaesthesiologists, regional referral hospitals and districts.
Experience using Internet based communication platforms for remote training, mentoring, and monitoring health services to reduce costs and improve efficiencies: BU installed ECHO zoom facilities in Fort portal (45) and Hoima (8) for online meetings, CMEs and training/mentorship with positive feedback from trainees. Echo zoom presents 73-85% cost saving compared to in-person training and review meetings respectively, based on preliminary data. BU, Pepal and Janssen Pharmaceutica have innovatively digitalized leadership training modules onto an online low-cost, Learning Management System called ‘Kajabi’ for HW training and certification.
Adolescent sexual and reproductive health capacity building:
We have a robust community strengthening program with experience in mobilizing and working with adolescent/youth peer groups to deliver services. Through successive grants from PEPFAR CDC/USAID and Global fund for comprehensive HIV/TB programs, including SRHR, Adolescents girls and young women, ELMA Philanthropies for child and adolescent health, URMCHIP/World Bank, UNICEF for RMNACH services and Pepal/ Waamu project,
Baylor-Uganda has gained vast experience implementing adolescent health programs, district-level technical assistance and training in RMNACH for health workers and young people in various regions of Uganda, including Ankole, Buganda, Bugisu, Bukedi, Bunyoro, Busoga, Elgon, Karamoja, Rwenzori, Sebei, Teso, Toro, and West Nile.
Baylor-Uganda has a robust research capacity. Our current researches include randomized clinical trials for investigation new drugs especially for pediatric HIV treatment and COVID-19 vaccine trials. We also conduct studies on diagnositics. More recently we are conducting a studies on TB diagnositics in children. Our other expertise in research includes conducting implementation science research and conducting surveys and program evaluations.
Building capacity of local indigenous organizations to lead the HIV response: BU has partnered with the Inter Bureau Coalition and Women’s Organization Network for Human Rights Advocacy to implement the ACE-Fort project.
We are one of the largest global HIV paediatric and adolescent programs. We deliver high quality family-centered paediatric and adolescent HIV prevention, care, treatment services, health professional training and clinical research. Other services include food and nutrition and social support to OVC, trainings, mentorships and support supervision, infrastructure improvement, equipment and supply chain management.
These operations are carried out at the COE and Post Natal Clinic both located at Mulago Hospital Complex. In addition, we support 145 health facilities in 9 districts in the Fort Portal region, 106 in facilities in 8 districts in the Bunyoro region, to implement comprehensive HIV and Global Health Security programs, funded by CDC/ PEPFAR. We also work in 18 districts supported through grants from Global Fund/TASO, namely; Bulisa, Kagadi, Masindi, Kyankwanzi, Kiboga, Kisoro, Rubirizi, Kalangala, Nakaseke, Luwero, Kayunga, Kasese, Ntoroko, Nakasongola, Buikwe, Hoima, Kibale and Kiryandongo. Under UNICEF, we work in 13 districts located in Eastern, Central and Western Uganda
Baylor-Uganda as an Implementing Partner (IP) supports the MoH and District Local Governments to decentralize HIV services in order to increase accessibility, availability and utilization of quality health service to the people of Uganda through a health systems strengthening approach. The key program stakeholders in the implementation process are the districts, municipalities, public and Private-Not For-Profit health facilities, persons living with HIV networks and civil society organizations (CSOs) in Baylor-Uganda supported areas.
A world where children and their families live a healthy and fulfilled life.
To provide high-quality family-cantered health care, education and research worldwide.
To reduce morbidity and mortality from infectious and non-communicable diseases, maternal and childhood conditions
A center of excellence for family-centred health services, education, and research
In the process of delivering on its mandate, Baylor-Uganda shall observe the following;
Block 5 Mulago Hospital. P.O Box 72052, Kampala, Uganda
Tel: +256-417-119100/200, +256-312 119100
Toll Free: 0800204444 or 0800111011
Kakiza Road, Boma
Fort Portal City
Fort Portal.
Tel: 0483-422143
Regional office,
Plot 52,
Bungokho Road,
Senior Quarters, Mbale City