Empowering South Africa: The AmCham - RMB Series on U.S. Corporate Impact feat Organon
How Organon drives equitable healthcare for women
The American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) and RMB have partnered to showcase how companies are driving social and economic impact in South Africa and on the wider continent. This month, we feature Organon South Africa, a company driven by the vision to improve the health of women throughout their lives. Organon’s vision is to a better and healthier every day for every woman.
Organon was launched in June 2021, and the organisation prides itself for being one of the first organisations of its size to focus primarily on women’s health. The health challenges for women range from inequal access to treatments, to illnesses that disproportionately affect women, to being misdiagnosed due to their symptoms presenting differently from how they present in men in an array of health conditions.
Mokgadi Mashishi, Africa Access Markets Director for Organon, Middle East, Turkey and Africa (META) says, “The time is now to not only engage in critical conversations on women’s health to remove access hurdles, but to also increase intentional investment and leadership in women’s health and drive visible policy shifts to improve the lives of women globally and especially in Africa. McKinsey estimates that women spend 25% more time in poor health in relation to men. We must drive gender and health equity while striving for equality, and this can be achieved by finding and implementing innovative and solutions to address this discrepancy in each of the markets we serve.”
As a global leader in women’s health, Organon operates in 140 markets. Of those markets, Organon South Africa services 34 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Mashishi explains that this support extends to several interventions. “We partner with government, funders, development, NGOs, implementing partners and youth-led organisations to expand access to women’s health in a way that reflects the needs at country level. This goes beyond the Organon supplying innovative medicines and devices, it extends to partnerships that addresses challenges and barriers in the health ecosystem, which included supply chain optimisation, health literacy, societal beliefs, health system strengthening and capacity building(which entails to training of healthcare professional and healthcare workers.”
We believe that Her Plan is Her Power, and we innovate for HER, Accelerate Access for HER and Advocate for HER.
Together with FP2023, we have pledged to contribute to 120 million prevent unintended pregnancies, thus enabling women and girls to pursue their dreams and reach their full potential without the additional concerns and burden that comes with an unintended pregnancy, which can literally derail development and deny women and girls the potential to complete their education and be fully economically active. As per our 2023 ESG report, to date, through our flagship programme, Her Promise Access initiative, we have delivered over 65 million doses of our modern contraceptive solution, more than 35 million in Africa, and we are halfway to our goal.
“Partnerships are critical as they enable organisations to leverage expertise from different stakeholders and sectors to improve health. To share a few of the many we have across the continent, is partnerships with Tiko, Pathfinder in Nigeria and FAQ in Southern Africa , to accelerate SRH literacy and other solutions especially among youth and adolescents to support many governments’ efforts to reduce teenage pregnancies and unintended pregnancies, therefore positioning the youth to be able to pursue their dreams and aspirations, take charge of their futures, live healthier lives and ultimately contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals and to building the Africa we want.” Mashishi says.
Intentional investment in women’s health is crucial to significantly move the needle. To this end, Organon partnered with UNFPA, committing $30 million to provide women in underserved communities and middle-income countries with access to solutions that will enable them to exercise their power of choice regarding whether to have children, when to have children and how many children they wish to have. This supports planned parenting, ensuring that every child born is an intentional choice thus contributing positively to future planning.
Inclusion matters when addressing challenges faced by the end users of health services and solutions as it fosters ownership while supporting innovation and growth. To this end, Organon, UNFPA and MIT Solve partnered on 4HerPower initiative, inviting young people globally to submit solutions to sexual and reproductive health, and the fact that we received over 370 submissions proves that the innovation in women’s health is exciting, well and alive! “From the winning 14 innovations from around the world, 5 came out of Africa and were fully funded.” Mashishi says, beaming with pride.
Organon’s focus is not limited to sexual and reproductive health, we provide medical solutions and education platforms for health care professions with a focus on pain management, cardiovascular diseases, dermatology, respiratory conditions, menopause, post-partum haemorrhage and we continue to research and find solutions conditions disproportionately affecting women.
In South Africa, Organon has contributed to youth development through learnership and graduate programmes. We partnered with Talent Development Institute on youth skills development aimed at health system strengthening. The learners were placed within Unjani clinics, a non-profit organisation that empowers nurses to build sustainable primary health care clinics nationally. “The learners get the opportunity to work in a facility that makes healthcare accessible through clinics that are owned and run by the nurses themselves.” adds Mashishi.
Our Organon graduate programme enables young professionals to, not only gain experience in the corporate world of pharmaceutical, they also get an opportunity to immersing themselves in solving real business challenges, have access to mentorship and coaching, and the programme contributes to their personal development journey through living our Organon values, values that will contribute significantly in their careers in future. Through this programme, we have been able to absorb 20% of the graduates from our programme into permanent roles and many more have gone on to work for notable law firms, FMCGs, pharmaceutical companies and other corporate organisations in the country.
At Organon we believe in making a difference in the lives of others. “Over the years partnered with Reach for a Dream, to help make dreams come true for children with life-threatening illness. We have used virtual reality virtual dream room, providing VR goggles which transport them to experiences of their desire through AI. We have just completed a project of building a Dream Room, an experience room for the children, at Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospitals in Johannesburg, to add a ray of hope for children on long term treatments for children at the hospital.”
Mashishi says Organon’s focus on women is reflected in female representation in leadership. “For us diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging extends to our internal operations. Globally, we have over 47% female leadership at director level and above, with almost 100% female representation in executive leadership in South Africa. We form part of the Middle East Turkey and Africa leadership and have a solid seat at the table, bringing our uniquely African view and perspective. We continue to create opportunities for women globally, and across the region, because we firmly believe that When women are empowered, so is our entire society, and our vision reflects that,”
“Organon is a proud principal founding member of Coalition or Women’s Health in Africa, CoWHA, a private sector led, partnership initiative working towards an enabling environment for the advancement of women’s health in Africa. Together, our impact on health is much more exponential and can scale quickly,” Mashishi concludes.