Background/Objective:
The Challenge Initiative (TCI), is a "business unusual" approach to financing, scaling up and sustaining reproductive health solutions. TCI provided technical support to Abia State government buy-in, leadership and ownership of the FP program, targeted technical assistance to the government to develop a program design for FP, coaching of State government officials in program design and implementation for scale up of high impact proven-to-work FP interventions. TCI plans for sustainability from the very beginning of its engagement with the State.
Materials and Methods:
RAISE tool promotes organizational learning, fosters an environment of best practice sharing and enables state governments to own their improvement plans. Four stages were adopted in deploying the RAISE tool; individual quality and sustainability assessment, group quality and sustainability assessment, quality and sustainability consensus workshop and State action plan development. The tool utilized the following criteria to assess State capacity in FP; increased political and financial commitment, capacity (knowledge) transfer, institutionalization of TCI's proven to work approaches and sustained demand through improved attitudes and behaviors towards FP.
Results:
Six rounds (R) of RAISE were conducted in Abia State between 2020 and 2021. R1=64%, R2=76%, R3=80%, R4=74%, R5=87% and R6=89%. The final score is determined by weighting each domain and then computing an overall percentage. 85%-100% depicts a mature FP program, 70%-84% shows an expanding program, 55%-69% indicates a developing program and <54% is a clear indication that the State FP Program was at its beginning stage.
Conclusion:
Through this reflective self-assessment tool, government were able to evaluate the quality of FP high impact interventions, identify key areas in need of strengthening, develop a concrete action plan for improvement, monitor the progress of the action plan and pinpoint program aspects that can serve as models for other state's FP programs.
