STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Editor's note: Mandy Moore is a singer-songwriter, actress, and an ambassador for Population Services International. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.

(CNN) -- I've just returned from a visit to Tanzania with the global health and development organization Population Services International to better understand the challenges facing health workers in the developing world. The outbreak of Ebola only underscores the dire need for trained health workers -- a global shortage of nearly 7.2 million health workers, according to the World Health Organization.

About half of the spending on health care in Africa goes to private providers and care can be unregulated and quality inconsistent. During my week on the ground, however, I met PSI community health workers, nurses, doctors and business owners who deliver controlled and quality health care across Tanzania.

Mandy Moore

PSI has ensured quality care by applying proven commercial franchising strategies -- think McDonalds or Subway -- to health care. PSI operates a franchise network that spans 31 countries and serves 10 million people every year. In Tanzania, the franchise is called Familia.

Lucy, a Familia community health worker, goes out into the community every day and educates women about family planning and other health issues. Lucy then refers these women back to the neighborhood Familia clinic located right in the village she serves.

I joined Lucy for a session she organized at a modest apartment building with a few rooms separated by concrete walls and colorful fabric curtains. When I climbed the stairs to the front porch, about a dozen women with babies who were seated on straw mats greeted me. Lucy began to talk with them about their contraception options, and they had lots of questions for her. The most vocal was a gregarious woman named Sophia.

Sophia had used condoms and pills to space her births, but when Familia began offering longer-term methods like implants, she switched. The implant prevents pregnancy for up to three years, and she shared with us how it was a great weight off her shoulders. She told the group that she wanted to be able to plan her family size, so she and her husband could save for the future. Lucy reiterated that for women like Sophia, access to family planning is a key to health and economic stability.

According to a report by the United Nations Population Fund and Guttmacher Institute, returns on investment in contraception can be recouped four times or more by reducing the need for public spending on social services. This is something Lucy knows well -- before she ended the session, she gave out vouchers to our new friends for a consultation at their local Familia clinic.

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