Leadership Development Program Plus (LDP+)

The Leadership Development Program Plus (LDP+) empowers teams to face local health service delivery challenges and to achieve results by utilizing hands-on leadership, management, and governance practices. With increased focus on country ownership, gender, and monitoring & evaluation, the new LDP+ works to systematically scale-up innovative health service results.

Read how the LDP+ expanded sexual and reproductive health services for youth in Uganda in this USAID Frontlines article.

The LDP+ builds on 10 years of lessons learned from implementing the original LDP in 40 countries. The LDP+ retains the emphasis on empowering teams to face challenges and achieve results, and complements them with new approaches tied to country ownership, national health priorities, and specific health indicators. The LDP+ also has a new emphasis on governance, with a governing body supporting implementing teams to scale up the LDP+ process within the country’s larger health system.

During the LDP+, working in teams over a period of five to eight months, participants learn to lead and manage by implementing improvement projects. They develop teams with shared visions, identify long-term strategies to address a health challenge, and commit to short-term results. They analyze what stands in the way of progress, think collaboratively and creatively, and develop innovative solutions to overcome obstacles. At every phase of the process, the teams apply the practices of leading and managing. Receiving support from facilitators, coaches, and the oversight team, participants often emerge from the program with greater confidence and a sense of power.

Methodology of the LDP+

The LDP+ helps groups develop an action plan incorporating priority actions to be implemented to achieve measurable improvements in health services and health outcomes. The LDP+ guides teams to define challenges (as distinguished from problems), measurable results, obstacles and root causes, and priority actions using the Challenge Model.

LDP+ for Scale-up

The LDP+ is designed to be scaled-up for sustainability and maximum reach. With step-by-step guidance on engaging governing bodies and planning for scale-up and expansion, the LDP+ is ideal for use in Ministries of Health, networks, and large organizations. Its adaptability lends itself to any health context, political, or social environment.

It is now being successfully scaled up by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). Trainers were trained in Uganda and Ghana, who have now replicated the program throughout their countries, as well as its expansion to Tanzania.

Nigeria:

The LDP+ pilot in Gwagwalada Health Council in Nigeria, where ten health facility teams participated in the LDP+, achieved increased uptake of Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT). A Governing Body, composed of critical stakeholders, set the direction by selecting five critical PMTCT indicators and proven interventions that local teams then adapted and implemented. The teams worked to create a vision of improved results around PMTCT, aligned stakeholders around this challenge, implemented their action plans, and shared what they learned with other teams for continuous improvement. After six months of extremely promising results, the Governing Body made a plan to scale up the improvement process throughout the country.

Ghana:

4 teams from Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG) have implemented action plans directed at improving the quality of and access to family planning, reproductive health and rights, and STI-related services. The teams improved their performance in many ways, including developing shared visions, team work, collaborative work planning, and improved reporting and M&E.

Their results after 6-months included:

In Jisonaili, the team achieved an increase in monthly access to FP services for young people by 390%.
The Cape Coast clinic developed new partnership with primary and secondary schools to sensitize students and linked 2,500 students with family planning and STI related services.

For more information on these results, visit: Scaling Up LMG Practices to Address Unwanted Pregnancies and Maternal Mortality.

In order to scale-up these results, PPAG is paired with another IPPF sponsored CSO in Malawi, to provide south-to-south support in implementing and institutionalizing the LDP+ there.

Uganda:

Six teams from Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU) have implemented action plans directed at improving the quality of and access to family planning, reproductive health and rights, and STI-related services. The teams improved their performance in many ways, including developing ways for shared work planning, collaboration and shared work planning.