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Sustainability

Sustainability

Program ParticipantsNetworks


In all LDM focal countries networks brought reproductive health leaders together to share information, resources and address critical reproductive health issues in their contexts. These networks included regional and national networks, thematic working groups, resource centers and e-groups. Supporting networks of RH leaders were a major component of the LDM program. The program’s focus included the effort to institutionalize the different networks of reproductive health leaders, making them, and the support they provide leaders, sustainable long into the future. Given the various country contexts, efforts to sustain networks of reproductive health leaders have evolved differently.


In India, for example, Leadership Fellows created Information Resource and Advocacy Centers (IRACs) in three locations in Bihar and Jharkhand states (Patna, Muzaffarpur and Ranchi). These Resource Centers served as a common platform for Leadership Fellows to access and share information, as well as participate in collaborative action. In Pakistan, the Leadership Fellows’ network explored opportunities to align Leadership Fellows with the Pakistan Reproductive Health Network (PRHN), a national network of RH leaders with focal chapters throughout the country.

 

Leadership Development Opportunities


Ensuring that excellent in-country leadership development opportunities exist in each country that continue to strengthen and support leadership development opportunities was another integral aspect of the LDM program’s sustainability efforts. The LDM program actively supported the institutionalization of leadership programs in each of the focal countries. In Ethiopia for example, one of the key undertakings was the design and implementation of a leadership program for ten organizations serving adolescents and youth throughout the country. The program, which was specially designed by IIE staff in Addis Ababa, as well as by local consultants, addressed self-development, organizational development, and self and organization in the broader system.

To support the institutionalization of leadership development for reproductive health programs in Nigeria, the LDM program worked with youth organizations (the OICI funded by USAID, the African Leadership Forum and the Centre for Information Technology and Development) as well as five university departments in Kano, Sokoto, Kaduna and Borno states to deliver leadership development programs for reproductive health.

The five departments include:

  • Department of Mass Communications, Bayero University Kano which is developing a diploma course on Leadership and Communication in RH
  • Department of Geography at Usman Dan Folio University which is introducing a course on Gender, Leadership and Sustainable Development
  • Department of Geography at Bayero University Kano where a course on Leadership and Management of Maternal Health Programs for in-service midwives is being launched
  • Departments of Law in ABU, Zaria and the University of Maiduguri where LDM will provide technical support to expand their MacArthur Foundation supported women’s rights programs to include leadership in RH as a topic.

In Pakistan, the LDM program developed a training program for master trainers within the Pakistan government’s Ministry of Population Welfare. The training of trainers also included representatives from the Pakistan Reproductive Health Network and Leadership Fellows who specialize in training. After participating in the nine-month training process, the new trainers rolled out leadership for RH programs to their various constituencies throughout the country, including government population and health care workers, NGO leaders, and youth.

Last Updated: June 2011