Center for Global Health and Economic Development

The Access Project

The Access Project is an initiative of the Center for Global Health and Economic Development in collaboration with the Millennium Villages Project in Rwanda. It aims to improve the health of people living in poverty in Rwanda by applying business and management skills to public health systems to increase access to life-saving drugs and critical health services.

The project applies this unique approach to 79 health centers, representing approximately 1/3 of all health centers in Rwanda. It focuses on sustainable and scalable strategies to address HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria and other preventable infectious diseases. Access, in collaboration with CGHED’s Neglected Tropical Disease project, recently implemented a Mass Drug Administration (MDA), which treated over four million children and adults for soil-transmitted helminthes (STH) and schistosomiasis.

Provision of ARV treatment is another example of Access Project's ability to dramatically scale-up health interventions. In 2007, more than 1,400 people were newly enrolled in ARV treatment in the three districts where Access works. Access built up the management, training and infrastructure, of facilities providing ARV treatment, and improved the staffs’ ability to provide sustainable, high-quality health care for the thousands living around them. Throughout these districts the number of HIV tests performed nearly doubled from 73,000 in 2006 to more than 131,000 in 2007. For more information about Access, click here.

For reflections from the ground, the Access Project’s Founding Director Josh Ruxin regularly contributes to Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times blog.