New Incentives Receives Grand Challenges Explorations Grant For Groundbreaking Research in Global Health and Development

Press Release (PDF)

San Francisco, CA (4 November 2014) – New Incentives announced today that it is a Grand Challenges Explorations winner, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  Svetha Janumpalli, Chief Executive Officer of New Incentives, will pursue an innovative global health and development research project, titled “Saving Babies: Conditional Cash Transfers and Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT).”

Grand Challenges Explorations (GCE) funds individuals worldwide to explore ideas that can break the mold in how we solve persistent global health and development challenges.  Svetha Janumpalli’s project is one of more than 60 Grand Challenges Explorations grants announced today by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Grand Challenges Explorations (GCE) funds individuals worldwide to explore ideas that can break the mold in how we solve persistent global health and development challenges.

To receive funding, Svetha Janumpalli and other Grand Challenges Explorations winners demonstrated in a two-page online application a bold idea in one of five critical global health and development topic areas.  The foundation is accepting applications for the current GCE round until November 12, 2014 11:30 AM PDT.

Saving Babies is a randomized controlled trial to evaluate whether conditional cash transfers (CCTs) can increase retention in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) cascade. The project combines the proven effectiveness of both CCTs and PMTCT to test a novel intervention for averting the transmission of HIV to newborns.

Saving Babies is a randomized controlled trial to evaluate whether conditional cash transfers (CCTs) can increase retention in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) cascade.

The cash transfer program evaluated in this trial is implemented in southern Nigeria by the US nonprofit New Incentives in collaboration with the Ministry of Health in Akwa Ibom State. Nigeria accounts for one in three mother-to-child transmissions of HIV. While HIV services have become widely available in Akwa Ibom over the past few years, retention continues to be a challenge. The conditional cash transfers are an effective means to reward desirable health-seeking behavior and financially support vulnerable HIV-positive women during pregnancy, delivery, and breastfeeding.

‍About Grand Challenges Explorations

‍Grand Challenges Explorations is a US$100 million initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Launched in 2008, over 1070 projects in more than 60 countries have received Grand Challenges Explorations grants.  The grant program is open to anyone from any discipline and from any organization. The initiative uses an agile, accelerated grant-making process with short two-page online applications and no preliminary data required. Initial grants of US$100,000 are awarded two times a year. Successful projects have the opportunity to receive a follow-on grant of up to US$1 million.

About New Incentives

‍New Incentives is a US-based nonprofit committed to implementing health-related cash transfer programs to save lives in developing countries. Operating in Nigeria, New Incentives gives HIV-positive women conditional cash transfers, which encourage them to follow medical advice and treatment so that their children are born healthy. Without medical treatment, babies are up to 15 times more likely to contract HIV, and half of those who do usually die within the first two years of their lives if they do not receive antiretroviral drugs. New Incentives is supported by GiveWell, Good Ventures, and The Lampert Family Foundation.