New Partnerships Initiative Expand Human Development Activity– Upper Dir

USAID engages with Pakistan through bilateral cooperation and robust civilian and security assistance, allowing joint action on issues that are important to both the United States and Pakistan:  energy, economic growth, resilience, education, and health. An array of partnerships with the Government of Pakistan, the private sector, and Pakistani civil society help ensure that assistance programs are aligned with local priorities and build local capacity.  USAID seeks to develop transformational partnerships and practices, as well as legacy institutions, to ensure that assistance has a sustained impact beyond the implementation period of its programs

Greenstar Social Marketing under the NPI EXPAND HDA grant for Upper Dir did an assessment of the capacity of DoH and PWD officials with respect to key health/data management functions. Based on the assessment, certain areas were lacking expertise such as Health Management Information System (HMIS), procurement and finance policy guidelines, Research, Monitoring and Evaluation (RM&E), Minimum Initial Services Package (MISP) and facility management on quality healthcare standards. Greenstar arranged a training session of 30 DoH and PWD officials on these areas. The District Health and Population Welfare management staff were supportive enough to provide nominations of participants and a trainer, Dr. Nazar Muhammad (ADHO of district Buner) for HMIS, RM&E and MISP. The real challenge was to find a specialized trainer for procurement and finance policy guidelines and facility management on quality healthcare standards as there was no trainer available in-house. To cope with the above, Greenstar capitalized on its strong liaison with various government departments and overcame the challenge by immediately contacting the Ex-CEO of the Healthcare commission KPK (HCCKP) Dr Maqsood Ali and obtaining his consent for delivering an online lecture on facility management on quality healthcare standards. Similar consent was obtained from Naeem Khan, KPPRA procurement specialist for an online lecture on procurement and finance policy guidelines. Greenstar made all the necessary arrangements that included internet connectivity and made sure it is uninterrupted, sending out session invites to the trainers and close follow-up with the concerned to ensure the session is successfully conducted.

The session went successfully, All the participants (DoH/PWD) highly appreciated Greenstar’s efforts to make this happen in such a problematic situation referring to the harsh weather as it was snowing that day. All the IT and logistics-related arrangements were well organized and participants were highly grateful to Greenstar for the much-needed training sessions that they never had the opportunity to learn about before.

The training was unique as it emphasized on the best practices of the essential management functions to improve the efficacy of the overall health and data management system. No such training had been conducted in the district before so basically it was the first time the district health/PWD management got trained on the subject. The sustainability depends on how much the knowledge/learning gained is incorporated into the department’s routine practices so that it can be passed on even if the management is changed.

Quote from the Participant

“I thought nothing new in terms of knowledge is going to come by that will help me improve my management skills but thanks to Greenstar for allowing us to learn new things, new concepts and new ways of managing our work more efficiently”.