Table 1

Potential elements and CMOCs

Level/potential elements	Contexts+	Mechanisms=	Outcomes	Potential explanatory CMOCs
Individuals in committee	Attributes: age, gender, time and availability for group, experience and education in health (MCH) Previous engagement with community (respect) Incentives (financial and non-financial)	Volunteerism and self-actualisation Commitment of members to community and committee Motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic)	Community recognition/respect Decreased workload for some members (increased sharing of resources) Potential for career advancement Increased collaboration between committee members	Individuals within the CHC are likely to provide supportive and consistent engagement for activities if they have strong motivation, a desire for volunteering for their community, and are committed to the group and its objectives. This may be influenced by the individual members' specific attributes (such as availability of time and knowledge), previous experience and incentives provided to them. This results in a decreased workload for the committee, due to increased collaboration, increased respect by community members and an overall committed committee better able to initiate activities and work towards building community capacity.
Committee	Membership make-up, operation and processes, leadership Relationship to other stakeholders (pressure from hierarchy) Sustained support: resources, training and supervision	Buy-in from relevant stakeholders (NGO and MoH) Respect of community members Harmonisation of activities between initiatives Shared resources and knowledge for programme Communication and trustworthiness between members and stakeholders	Service delivery: increasing services for population; initiation of new activities for MCH Group synergy Implementation of activities at multiple levels of society Strong programme management	Committees that have broad membership make-up have strong operations and processes in place, have strong leadership with consistent training and supervision and work to build relationships with other community stakeholders are more likely to have buy-in from other invested parties, gain the respect of community members, align health activities from different activities for more harmonised services, share resources and knowledge, and have strong communication and trust between members. This collaboration works to increase service delivery, with implementation addressing multiple levels of society, and also works to provide committee synergy and a strengthening of programme management, all of which are assumed to contribute capacity building for MCH.
Community	Past experience with committees and other initiatives: community receptiveness Availability and strength of health services and system for MCH Health policies and priorities of system	Community Organisation, Mobilisation and Participation Community member's ability to participate Increasing advocacy skills for MCH Community critical awareness	Development of local leadership for health Community needs assessments and evaluations Increase in health services for MCH Increase in health system responsiveness Decrease of workload for health staff and other volunteers	Committees that operate in communities with positive past experiences with similar initiatives, that have existing MCH health services and strong systems to support their implementation, and policies that favour their implementation, are assumed to lead to increased community organisation, mobilisation and participation for maternal and child health. They are also assumed to increase community members’ ability to participate in health activities, have critical awareness of their rights, and advocate for their health needs. This is assumed to result in creating local leadership (champions) for MCH, increase evaluation and needs assessment, increase health services and health responsiveness, and decrease the workload for health staff and volunteers.
Wider context	Socioecological environment: conducive policies with government backing supporting committee structures and objectives, in line with community and NGO objectives; organisational structures around MCH health programming from government and NGO level			Committees that are able to strengthen the three aforementioned levels of functioning (individual, committee and community), in line with pre-existing socioecological contextual factors, are assumed to promote community capacity building for maternal and child health.

CMOC, context-mechanism-outcome configurations; MCH, maternal and child health; NGO, non-governmental organisation.