Maman Joia
Intelligence that reaches the last mile. An offline-first, multilingual decision-support platform for the community health workers who care for pregnant women across the DRC.
Scroll to read the story in six chapters.
In 2023, about 19,000 women in the DRC died from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. That is 7.2% of all maternal deaths in the world, level with India for the second-highest national total.
Source: WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank Group and UN DESA, Trends in maternal mortality 2000 to 2023 (2025).
Each dot ≈ 1,000 of the 260,000 maternal deaths worldwide in 2023. Amber: the DRC.
At the end of 2025, 69.5% of people in the DRC were not using the internet. Any tool that depends on a connection will fail exactly where it is needed most.
Source: DataReportal, Digital 2026: The Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Each square is 1% of the population. Lit: online.
One health worker. One decision. No signal.
Maman Joia is designed for a single moment: when a community health worker must judge whether a pregnant woman needs to be referred — far from a specialist, and beyond the reach of the network.
Three design principles.
Not an app. An implementation program.
A model is the easy part. Maman Joia is being built as six connected workstreams:
- Clinical workflow
- Interoperable data
- AI and validation
- Offline and edge deployment
- Public and community ownership
- Sustainable financing
Public health stays in charge.
Any deployment of Maman Joia will be placed under the authority of public-health officials. Nothing will be used with patients without validation and their agreement.