Achieving Sustainable Results through Leadership & Management Strengthening for Family Planning and Reproductive Health

Improving the leadership and management capacity of health providers creates a catalyst that leads to improvements in health outcomes. As health providers strengthen their leadership and management skills through practical, action-based approaches, they learn to work together as a team, crossing borders that were holding them back, and begin to achieve significant results. In the Aswan governorate in Egypt, health facilities went through a Leadership Development Program (LDP) in 2002. Each facility selected a challenge and created an action plan. As a result, between 2003 and 2006, Maternal Mortality Rates in Aswan dropped 41% while Infant Mortality Rates fell by 35%. The Aswan teams found the program so useful, they continued the program even after donor funding ended. This resulted in all 185 health facilities in the governorate being brought into the program in three years, from 2002 to 2005. The Aswan facilitators are continuing to expand the program and are now bringing it to other governorates. The Egyptian teams shared their experiences with Ministry of Public Health officials from Afghanistan during a 2005 study tour. The Ministry officials were so impressed that they returned and replicated the program in five provinces. The Afghan program is currently being scaled up has expanded to 13 provinces. Using the same LDP approach, nine teams in the Kigoma province in Tanzania increased the number of new family planning clients per month from 20-80%. The Leadership Development Program enables teams to build capacity to lead and manage that has proven to be sustainable and effective in producing results and crossing borders.