APPROACH
Imagine a Young Woman
Imagine Sarita. She lives in a small village in South India. She’s 22 years old and has a beaming smile. She’s 8 months pregnant with her first child. Her entire family is celebrating and filled with excitement at the upcoming birth. But there are questions…
Has Sarita been eating well and receiving adequate pre-natal care? Is there a clinic close to her village? Is there a functioning road to get to the clinic? Is there some mode of timely transport available to her? Is the clinic staffed with a nurse and doctor? Does it have electricity? Does it have functioning equipment and an operating table if there are complications? Can she afford the cost of a clinic delivery? Is there a community health worker or trained midwife to help with a home delivery?
Imagine Sarita…
A Systems Approach to Development
We believe that a systems approach to development is the key to enable developing communities transform into flourishing societies. For Sarita it is the difference between life and death. Both hers and her unborn child’s.
What do we mean by a systems approach to development? A systems approach recognizes that all programs and interventions exist within a system. And that the smooth functioning of this system is the foundation on which all successful development rests.
The challenges of providing equitable development for all are clear. But so are the solutions. And we help build the systems that ensure their most widespread and sustainable impact.
What exactly is a System?
Let’s use the example of a health system, the kind of system Sarita would be relying on, to understand what a system is and why it’s important.
The WHO defines a health system as consisting of “all the organizations, institutions, resources and people whose primary purpose is to improve health”. The different components of a well-functioning health system include:
- Trained and well-compensated personnel, including doctors, nurses, community health workers
- Effective financing mechanisms
- Robust infrastructure (clinics, hospitals, roads)
- Updated health information systems (electronic medical records) and medical equipment
- Strong regulations, policies and legislation
- Responsive supply chains (that ensure the timely delivery of medicines)
A Well-functioning Health System
A well-functioning health system ensures that requisite care is available to people when and where they need it, at a price they can afford. It is something that is almost invisible to us in the developed world because it functions. It is also invisible to Sarita. But for the opposite reason.
The WHO asserts that “The poor state of health systems in many parts of the developing world is one of the greatest barriers to increasing access to essential health care.”
A Package of Interventions
A systems approach to development recognizes that while one-off vaccination programs save lives, impact increases dramatically when they are part of a package of health interventions rolled out nation-wide. Such a package of interventions could include:
- Reproductive and child care
- Communicable (ex.: malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS) and non-communicabble disease control (ex. Diabetes, cardiovascular diseases)
- Community health promotion and disease prevention
- Nutrition and sanitation education
- Strengthening supply chains so clinics have the necessary drugs
The Importance of Scaling Up
Think for a minute about what it would mean if you had a school to go to. But a cousin who lived 20 miles away didn’t. Or if a friend who lived in another city had easy access to a functioning hospital. And you didn’t.
There are an infinite number of independent programs that have been successful in development over the years. A nutrition program. A vaccination program. Building a school. Digging a well. Isolated, independent successes are plentiful.
Critical to the systems approach is the need to incorporate the successes of independent interventions and take them to scale. To ensure that the proven benefits of such interventions are not confined to specific villages or cities. But are spread across entire countries.
Systems Approach = Sustainability + Scalability
The systems approach is, therefore, a more sustainable and holistic response to poverty alleviation than the independent intervention or program approaches that abound. And it involves working with governments, because they have the resources and responsibility to take interventions and programs to scale.
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and the private sector have an important role to play in the development process. But only governments can be held accountable for meeting the basic needs of all their citizens. Working with governments ensures the sustainability and scalability of our programs. It maximizes the benefits of the work we do to the communities we serve.
The ultimate goal of our programs is to provide communities with the knowledge and tools to take the reins of their development into their own hands.
