CLA for Locally Led Leadership Development in West Africa: Lessons from the Leader-as-Coach-Accelerator-Program (LCAP)

As part of HRH2030 (Human Resources for Health in 2030), the Capacity Building for Malaria (CBM) activity aimed to strengthen the institutional and managerial capacities of National Malaria Control Programs (NMCP) by seconding long-term technical advisors (LTTAs) in select countries around the world. These advisors sought to strengthen NMCPs’ institutional capacity to ensure effective implementation of high-quality malaria control services as well as NMCPs’ ability to lead and manage its health workforce.  As the program moved into its fifth and final year of implementation, sustainability was on everyone’s mind: Do the current staff have the adequate skills, knowledge, and leadership abilities to carry the work into the future? In response to questions of sustainability, HRH2030, in partnership with Bean Group Global (BGG) designed an innovative leadership accelerator program (LCAP) based on a coaching and action learning framework. This 8-month pilot program conducted in Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Togo was grounded in the theory of change that: with deeper knowledge of coaching strategies, coupled with on-the-job training techniques, applied and practiced in the workplace, LTTAs ability to strengthen NMCP leadership capacity will be enhanced. The LCAP sought to generate evidence that a coaching approach could enhance local decision-making and critical thinking skills – leadership behaviors essential to sustaining momentum after project close-out.  Through the CLA sub-components of theory of change, continuous improvement and learning, openness and adaptive management, the LCAP provides a body of evidence to suggest that coaching leads to sustainable capacity development.  For many advisors, this coaching approach significantly shifted the relationship with their NMCP counterparts from providing solutions to technical bottlenecks to creating behavior change, facilitating learning, and focusing on results.