Sarah Brittingham, Senior Technical Officer, FHI 360
The FP/RH Scale-up COP hosted a session to feature tools for scale-up and their varied applications at the July 12, 2022 IBP Partners’ Meeting. The session was attended by more than 80 participants and opened with an overview of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Strategy and Impact at Scale Initiative, which aims to strengthen national, regional, and global levers to scale proven interventions, by Dr. Saad Abdulmumin. Participants also enjoyed an introduction (or refresher, for many) of the tools ExpandNet has developed to build capacity for systematic scale-up from Laura Ghiron, President of Partners in Expanding Health Quality and Access. The meeting then shifted to presentations illustrating distinct uses of tools to support or document scale-up:
We learned about the Sukh Initiative’s success addressing a barrier to uptake of injectable contraceptives in Pakistan by enabling a cadre of lady health workers, as opposed to midlevel providers, who were difficult for women to access, to provide initial doses. The initiative, presented by Dr. Haris Ahmed, used ExpandNet’s tool Beginning with the End in Mind and highlighted partnership with the government from the start, enhanced political will, and a highly contextualized strategy as key to the successful scale-up of the solution.
Screenshots of presentations from laura ghiron, Dr. Haris Ahmed, Charles kabiswa, and george barigye
Charles Kabiswa, Director of Regenerate Africa, then shared experience from the sustainable scale-up of an integrated Population, Health and Environment intervention called HoPE-LVB, which addresses challenges of food security, nutrition, unmet need for family planning, and more in East Africa’s Lake Victoria Basin. Charles detailed how the model leveraged WHO/ExpandNet guidance, including Nine steps for developing a scaling-up strategy, by planning for scale from the outset. The presentation emphasized a key adaptation: joint implementation with stakeholders, as opposed to implementation by project staff. The intervention has been codified in policy, frameworks, and Uganda’s Costed Implementation Plan and has benefited from increased investment, thanks to the movement that coalesced around the effort to integrate population, health and environment.
Lastly, George Barigye, a regional technical advisor with PATH, shared how the Access Collaborative leveraged an institutionalization tracker developed by Management Systems International to assess progress with the scale-up of self-injection of DMPA-SC across seven countries. George shared how the team adapted the indicators to be specific to self-injection before highlighting key findings, which offered clear data to identify successes as well as areas where efforts needed to be bolstered, ultimately allowing stakeholders to develop country level action plans for 2022-2023.
The session ended with a Q&A where presenters reflected on challenging aspects they’ve experienced in their work on scale-up and a sharing of advice and wisdom for other initiatives in terms of how to prioritize approaches to achieve successful scale-up. We invite those who registered for the meeting to access the recording using your platform login here.