The Role of the Service Delivery Learning Program (SDLP) and Stakeholder Engagement Program in Strengthening the Liaison Officer Position

The Service Delivery Learning Program (SDLP) was a GFF organized action-oriented and needs-driven learning program aimed at supporting countries in delivering essential services, amidst limitation on time and multiple demands on officials who drive health service delivery. The learning program among other things focused on:

– Deploying core capacities to address COVID-19;

– Strengthening frontline service delivery; and

– Addressing demand side constraints

The country teams were encouraged to conduct stakeholder analyses, bringing context specific data to further contextualize and discuss the feasibility of solutions during in-country consultations with the goal of creating pathways to implement their change plans during a pandemic.

Stakeholder analysis provides a strategic view of various possible stakeholder issues, it helps in the long run to build trust among all interested parties, anticipate potential pinch points as well as reduce transactional costs through creation of project implementation synergies. Performing stakeholder analysis is a great way to deliver ‘consumer’ oriented programs; It helps in understanding various stakeholder views and to what extent they can affect implementation.

These two learning agendas have been uniquely beneficial for the Liaison officer position: the stakeholder engagement program provided the Liaison officer with hands on knowledge on stakeholder mapping, analysis and engagement, while the SDLP agenda created an environment to build their competencies as advisors to the consensus building process;  the Liaison officers reported

• a deeper and stronger understanding of the role political economy played in implementation of public health programs

“…Have deepened the engagement with key movers and influencers with continuous advocacy with Government for broadening the stakeholder base and expansion of discussions around Technical assistance, evidence gap mapping….”

• the need for developing a purpose driven approach when engaging financiers and implementing partners around a common agenda

“Last FY had a lot of challenges of Stakeholder engagement due to COVID. However, this year it has begun with more thrust to involve Stakeholders in the IC development as more are involved in various workshop sessions and it will ensure a smooth tracking of its implementation.”

• And the intangible yet crucial tasks that will need to be addressed during the process of engaging stakeholders

“….and that a lot of preparation has to go into planning the before, during and after engagements for it to be effective or most useful…”

On a personal level, the programs introduced the Liaison officers to processes of self-evaluation and understanding personality traits, and how they impact our reaction and approach to complex settings:

• Liaison officers reported increase in self-awareness

“The program was interesting, and I learnt a lot about ensuring continuity of Essential Health Services. Reflecting on your question, I realize that I exhibited the PULL influencing style when facilitating/co-facilitating the sessions which required that I seek information from participants and use the information provided to jointly put together an action plan for the country.

• And provided them with a unique opportunity to develop competencies in consensus building and facilitating discussions

“…. preparing for those engagements proved to be critical in having fruitful discussions and sharing information and collective follow up actions was also quite useful in maintaining the interest and participation of the team in the program…”

• Including the ability to sense and anticipate potential bottlenecks to program implementation

“…In the end, we are obliged to go back to the authorities to ask for a support of our plan, to be interested in involving the high authorities from the start in this kind of program. Otherwise it will just have the interest of creating a community of practice among the participants.”

Overall, the outcomes of these two learning agendas could be summed up in the words of one of the participants

“I better understand my role as a consultant an advisor in the process of engaging stakeholders…”: