Scenario Planning for Development

CEDAR's Sustainability Framework has long talked about the importance of planning for various scenarios by taking the long view in project planning, management, and evaluation activities, reiterated again in a recent paper by Eric Sarriot et al., A causal loop analysis of the sustainability of integrated community case management in Rwanda which also studied scenarios.

Source: http://neomer.us/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/page_scenarioplanning.png

As Wilson Center's New Security Beat writes in its article Scenario Planning for Development: It's About Time, "scenario planning systematically looks at existing and emerging trends and their plausible - though sometimes unlikely - combinations in order to reduce risk. It's an exercise that does not produce single point predictions, but examines a range of possible situations to help prepare for the unexpected."

It's interesting, and heartening, to see USAID changing its approach to development over the last few years by incorporating longer term goals, "adaptive programming" to better respond to external influences such as natural disasters, disease outbreaks, or shifts in governance structures, and increasing focus on "exit pathways". New Security Beat writes of these adaptive approaches that are increasingly embraced, in line with and in response to the rise in uncertainty, preparedness/response shortfalls, and growing complexity. This indeed seems a direction to impact development work for years to come.

Read more about scenario planning and its increasing use by USAID here.

Social accountability - review of existing literature and learning

Social accountability is an essential element to improving health outcomes and facilitating health sector reform. The following links provide two important summaries of some literature on the topic. 

The Role of Social Accountability in Improving Health Outcomes: Overview and Analysis of Selected International NGO Experiences to Advance the Field

CORE Group

Source: http://www.coregroup.org/storage/documents/
Resources/Tools/Social_Accountability_Final_online.pdf

 This review discusses three social accountability models used in various sectors at community, district, and national levels, to increase accountability and improve health outcomes. The approaches reviewed, analyzed, and described are: (1) Citizen Voice and Action, implemented by World Vision; (2) Partnership Defined Quality, implemented by Save the Children; (3) and the Community Score Card, implemented by CARE.

Voice and Accountability in the Health Sector
Health & Education Advice & Resource Team (HEART)

This resource by HEART is a nice and concise review of key peer publications of voice and accountability in the health sector, assessing specific initiatives in the health sector, using Bangladesh as a country example, and providing available models for increasing social accountability.

Training Opportunity

CEDARS tends to focus on health-in-development and related topics, and we have focused a lot of attention on design, management and evaluation processes to enhance sustainability, making use of quantitative data as much as possible, while being firmly anchored in implementation.

Here's however a major training opportunity for people who are interested in the hard science, the quantitative underpinnings of some of the major issues in sustainability. No better place to do it than the Santa Fe Institute. The focus is on urban sustainability, but it's probably a good opportunity to learn about methodologies which we need to pay more attention to.

Here's to the young innovators ready to learn new things. And if you're not that young, you just qualified by virtue of thirsting to learn.

Check out the course information here.

Eric

General Relativity Comes to Global Health—thinking about sustain-scale in health systems interventions

ICF International Center for Design and Research in Sustainability | Sustainable Health & Human Development (CEDARS), January 2015

A metaphor for sustain-scale?

I want to offer a metaphor to question some of  the ways that we, as the global health  community, have been talking about and dealing  with two concepts: sustainability and scale.

I need to start with a little bit of recent history…

Read the rest of this Discussion Paper on the CEDARS website.