VillageReach transforms healthcare delivery to reach everyone, so that each person has the healthcare needed to thrive. We develop solutions that improve equity and access to primary healthcare. This includes making sure products are available when and where they are needed and primary healthcare services are delivered to the most underserved. Radical collaboration with governments, the private sector, and other partners strengthen our ability to scale and sustain these solutions.
One of the greatest challenges in healthcare in developing countries is the gaps that prevent medicines, vaccines, and services from reaching remote villages.
VillageReach's model addresses five last-mile logistical barriers
VillageReach's vision is to ncrease access to quality healthcare for the world’s most underserved communities.
VillageReach has increased immunization rates and launched a sustainable business, VidaGas, to provide key support.
Transform healthcare delivery systems to reach everyone, everywhere, so each person has the healthcare needed to thrive.
Adoption of Model in Public Systems Ministries of Health are the preferred path to scale for VillageReach innovations. VillageReach co-creates innovative health solutions, integrates successful solutions into health systems, and ensures governments and partners are prepared to sustain them.
Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors, VillageReach
Born in Cameroon, Blaise Judja-Sato was a successful US businessman until a devastating flood in
Mozambique prompted his return to Africa. While helping with relief efforts, he saw both the
suffering of the rural poor and the frustration of nongovernmental organizations that could not get
medicines across the “last mile” of remote country to those in need. He also realized that these
last-mile barriers affected industries and others who might be willing to pay into a shared system
that benefited everyone. So, in 2000, Blaise gave up a lucrative corporate career to found
VillageReach to build this infrastructure and solve the last-mile logistical challenges that
prevent healthcare from reaching rural Mozambique.
Blaise left the organization in 2008 to pursue other endeavors and founded the NGO, The Resilience Trust, in 2015. He did not remain active in the organization. When Blaise left in 2008, Allen Wilcox, a volunteer and Board member, stepped into the role of President, donating his salary and in fact donating his own personal wealth to help keep the organization alive during uncertain financial times. In July 2016, Allen transitioned out of his role as President but remains on the Board in a senior advisor role focused on partner relations, advocacy for change leadership and innovation for improving health system performance at the lower levels. Emily Bancroft, was promoted from Vice President to President in December 2017.
Prior to joining VillageReach, Emily worked with the International Training and Education Center on Health (I-TECH), Physicians for Human Rights, and NPower, a pioneering social enterprise focused on transforming the way nonprofits use technology to achieve their mission. Emily is a Clinical Instructor in the Department of Health Services at the University of Washington. She holds an MPH from the University of Washington School of Public Health and a BA from Princeton University.
Our work increases access to quality healthcare for 58 million people in sub-Saharan Africa.
Across more than 1,400 health facilities in seven provinces in the Democratic Republic of Congo, we achieved an availability rate of 83 percent of 21 immunization products in 2021. Our recent midterm evaluation of drone deliveries for vaccines and lab samples found that drone deliveries eliminated stockouts of tracer products (with up to 25 percent of health facilities being stocked out at baseline, depending on vaccine) and increased polio lab samples being received within three days from 10 percent at baseline to 52 percent at midline.
In Mozambique, we doubled our deliveries of essential medicines to reach over 12,000 health facilities in 2021 (more than twice the 5,894 facilities we reached prior to October 2020). On-time deliveries remained consistent during the expansion (from 74 percent to 77 percent) showing sustained performance with scale. We also handed over our management of the 4PL companies to a tri-party agreement between provinces, USAID, and the logistics provider with VillageReach moving into an oversight and capacity-building role.
Through the COVID-19 Action Fund for Africa—of which VillageReach was a founding member, a member of the oversight committee, and the supply chain lead—we worked across 30 partners and 18 countries to deliver 121 million pieces of personal protective equipment to almost 480,000 CHW and frontline health workers.
In order to improve equity and access to primary health care for the most under-reached people, public health systems in most countries need massive changes. Today, there are more innovators…
As the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic bore down in Democratic Republic of Congo in December 2020, Bébé Bola, a community health worker (CHW) in the Pakadjuma township of…
No health worker should have to choose between treating their patients and keeping themselves and their families safe. However, as the global shortage and inequitable distribution of personal protective equipment…
At the end of June, the African continent had 400,000 COVID-19 cases, with local transmission increasing significantly. By the end of July, that case count had more than doubled. Health…
Emily Bancroft is President of VillageReach, an organization that works to transform health care delivery to reach everyone. VillageReach won the Skoll Award in 2006. Its initiative in Malawi, Chipatala…
