Meridian’s role in the STRIDES project was to strengthen the involvement of the private sector in meeting the project’s overall goals of improved reproductive health, family planning, and child survival services.  Meridian supported STRIDES in implementing a variety of innovative partnership modalities to increase investment in USAID priority areas and strengthen linkages with district-level health officials; these partnerships included a range of Ugandan as well as multinational companies and organizations.  Meridian provided technical leadership identifying potential partnerships, developing concept papers and proposals, letters of agreement, and cost-share leveraging.  Meridian also supported STRIDES in identifying private service delivery partners for its performance-based contracting component.

Meridian supported partnership development with more than 12 private organizations, including Kampala Pharmaceutical Industries, Kampala Serena Hotel, Mabaale Tea, Mama Alive, Monitor Publications, P&G, Standard Chartered Bank/Sight Savers, Stanbic Bank, Text-to-Change, Uganda Baati Ltd., and Unilever.  These partnerships contributed more than US$10 million in cash and in-kind contributions for STRIDES’ health programs.

Other partners on STRIDES were Management Sciences for Health (MSH) (Prime Contractor), JHPIEGO, and the Ugandan organization Communication for Development Foundation.