NAIROBI HOSTS A GLOBAL HEALTH COMMUNITY
EVENT: International Maternal Newborn Health Conference 2026 (IMNHC 2026)
CLIENT: Jhpiego, Secretariat lead for the AlignMNH initiative
VENUE: Edge Convention Centre, Nairobi
DATES: 23rd – 26th March 2026
Event snapshot
Nairobi
1800
Delegates
90 Person Delivery Team
21 Exhibitors
81%
Sustainability Rating
15 Vendor
Partners
4 Days
The Moment
Every few years, the global maternal and newborn health community convenes in one room. Ministries of Health, multilateral institutions, researchers, clinicians, funders, and country delegations come together to review the evidence, share what is working, and shape the agenda for the years ahead.
In March 2026, that conversation came to Nairobi.
The AlignMNH initiative, convened by Jhpiego as Secretariat lead and funded by the Gates Foundation, held the second International Maternal Newborn Health Conference at Edge Convention Centre. The first IMNHC, in Cape Town in 2023, had set a high bar. Nairobi had to meet it.
This was not a conference that could afford to feel improvised. Country delegations, global funders, and institutional leadership were in the room. The margin for operational error was zero. Waridi partnered with Jhpiego from June 2025 onward to design and deliver the conference from the ground up.
Designing for 1,800, Not 800
The original brief envisioned approximately 800 delegates. The conference delivered 1,800.
Scaling that far beyond projection without losing control of the experience is the central operational story of IMNHC 2026. It required rethinking every system from first principles. Registration had to move 1,800 people through accreditation without queues. Wayfinding had to work for delegates arriving from across the world, many for the first time in Nairobi. Session rooms had to run in parallel across 40 spaces.
Simultaneous interpretation had to operate cleanly in English, French, and Portuguese across session rooms. Country delegation spaces, quiet rooms, a lactation room, and speaker preparation facilities all had to be designed into the venue footprint from day one.
We integrated the client's registration software with our own and deployed ten on-site printing stations with QR code readers. Delegates arrived, scanned, printed, and walked through. A full wayfinding system of directional signage, room identification, session-specific signage, and a pocket guide in every attendee bag meant no delegate had to ask where to go.
The principle that held it all together was simple: every room was treated as its own event. Forty rooms, a main ballroom configurable into three, and two tented breakout spaces, each with a dedicated production team of producer, sound engineer, AV technician, lighting technician, videographer, and ushers. Floor coordinators held accountability for the rooms on each floor. Nothing was ever shared responsibility.
Choreographing the Program
The main ballroom did not stay the same for four days. It was rebuilt five times, with different stage configurations for plenary, awards, panel formats, and closing. The exhibition space ran rotating showcases across 21 exhibitors. Breakout rooms reset between sessions.
Every transition happened in a defined window, usually during a tea break or lunch, without a delegate noticing.
Fifteen vendor partners worked from the same run of show. AV, staging, branding, catering, and Waridi floor coordinators each held parallel task lists indexed to the same clock. When a session ended, the stage crew was already in position. The AV team had already repatched. The branding team was already moving the backdrop. The catering team had already cleared the previous break. Every vendor knew not just what they were doing, but what every other vendor was doing in the same thirty-minute window.
This only worked because every vendor had been briefed on the full turnaround plan before the conference began, not just their own piece of it. A single coordinator on site called the transitions and confirmed readiness before the next session opened.
The delegate saw a seamless programme. What they did not see was five-stage builds, multiple exhibition rotations, and a dozen room resets, each one executed in under thirty minutes.
Sustainability as an Operating Principle
For an international health conference of this scale, sustainability is not a marketing claim. It is a delivery expectation.
Sustainability was designed into the operational plan from the sourcing stage. Branding was produced through local vendors, reducing freight emissions and supporting the Nairobi production ecosystem. Stage carpets and drapes were designed for reuse. Event badge holders were set up for take-back and recovery.
Refillable water bottles replaced single-use plastics across the crew. Paper waste from the registration desk was shredded on site for controlled disposal. Student support was drawn from Events Academy alumni and volunteers, deepening delivery capacity while keeping the team locally grounded.
Sustainability performance was independently audited by Pneuma AV, Waridi's production partner, using a structured methodology based on the waste hierarchy across four event phases.
The conference scored 81%. Category: On Track Performer.
This is what it means to treat sustainability as an operating principle rather than a slogan.
Holding the Complexity, Delivering the Outcome
Behind the visible conference was significant operational depth.
Over a nine-and-a-half-month period, Waridi led the local delivery end-to-end, from early planning conversations through to final on-site execution and the post-conference Steering Committee meeting.
A 90 person Waridi and vendor delivery team coordinated 15 vendor partners, managed transport across six delegate hotels and an airport welcoming committee, operated on site medical provision including a fire engine and ambulances, ran registration and on site flow for 1,800 delegates, delivered simultaneous interpretation in English, French, and Portuguese, hosted 21 exhibitors in a dedicated marquee, and coordinated catering across three floors without a single service bottleneck.
Zero medical incidents. Zero security incidents. Zero programme disruptions.
A 1,800-delegate international health conference is not delivered by effort. It is delivered by structure.
