Moving from Talking to Collective Learning for Action
In this newsletter, we’re sharing exciting news on the Launch of the Learning Network Community of Practice on Scaling Innovations in the Public Sector to drive collective learning amongst members. The practice of shared problem solving has proven time and again to be effective in accelerating innovation. In the Past Events section, we also summarise portable lessons from the virtual event we hosted during the Skoll World Forum in April. Finally, we’re Looking Ahead to what promises to be highly engaging events over the next few months.
Launch of the Learning Network Community of Practice on Scaling Innovations in the Public Sector
The Learning Network was established to push forward the frontiers of public sector scaling of innovations. Collaborative learning through establishment of a community of practice was identified as an effective vehicle to achieve our mission. To this end, Spark Health Africa has set up an online Community of Practice on Scaling Innovations in the Public Sector. The objectives of this online CoP are to
Increase knowledge sharing of lessons and best practices
Increase idea generation for innovation and continuous improvement
Increase experimentation to apply best practices in real-life settings across Sub-Saharan Africa
Click here to register to be a member of the CoP. You are encouraged to begin sharing your journey to scaling, what is working and what is not working. Your journey to scale will be accelerated through collective learning.
Past Events you may have missed
On the 8th April 2022 the Learning Network hosted a virtual ecosystem event at the 2022 Skoll World Forum. At this event, the Governments of Cote d’Ivoire and Uganda showcased examples of COVID-19 programs implemented with a sustainability lens that allowed these governments to balance the emergency response to COVID-19 against long-term health system priorities. Key learnings arising from the discussion were:
Governments have the greatest ownership over creating an enabling environment to build resilient health systems
Most interventions require frontline healthcare workers to be part of the deployment and maintenance of the solution.
Governments can only mount a credible emergency response and scale if they have a critical mass of healthcare workers, and it is imperative that they first keep them alive and healthy and facilitate economic means to survive and thrive.
Both governments facilitated support for healthcare workers to strengthen their technical, mental, and emotional capacity (resilience)
When going through a crisis, put it to good use to improve your circumstances
Both governments recognized the opportunity that COVID-19 presented to create resilient health systems that can withstand short-term shocks as well as respond to systemic challenges.
For this to happen, the governments of Cote d’Ivoire and Uganda focused on curating things that were working (during the crisis), and thoughtfully inserting them in their scale up plans.
You can watch a full version of the discussion here. We are now working on developing a more comprehensive article on the two cases that will be published at the end of July 2022 and shared as a resource for all members.
Looking Ahead – Save the Date!
We will be accelerating our engagement efforts with members to make the learning network of value. Here are some exciting events to look forward to:
On Thursday 28 July 2022 we will be recording a Workshop on Transformative Leadership to infuse transformative leadership principles for governments to lead and funding and implementing partners to support systems change through the scaling of innovation. The recording will be available as a resource on the Learning Network CoP website.
On Thursday 29 September 2022, the Learning Network will be partnering with our friends at ExpandNet to host a workshop to increase awareness and technical skills amongst Learning Network members on how best to use ExpandNet’s scaling frameworks and tools. The recording will be available as a resource on the Learning Network CoP website.