Leadership is an essential element of successful, scaled-up, and sustainable health systems. Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health (MLI) brings together expertise in leadership development and specialized technical areas needed to design and successfully implement health sector reforms. MLI focuses on improvements in three urgently needed health policy areas—equitable financing, donor harmonization, and reproductive health. It uses a range of methods including peer learning, tailored technical assistance, real-life business-style cases, and a virtual community of practice.

As a partner in MLI, the Results For Development Institute (R4D) is currently supporting this leadership development initiative for the health minister and his or her senior team in five countries – Ethiopia, Mali, Nepal, Senegal, and Sierra Leone.  Using our expertise in fostering organizational leadership, developing options for innovative financing, and improving access to critical information for national stakeholders, we are helping the five ministerial teams by:

• Providing a tailored package of technical assistance in each country. In Ethiopia, for example, we are backing the minister in developing a “balanced score card” that will allow provincial and national health officials to plan and monitor their activities more effectively. In Sierra Leone, R4D is helping the health ministry team to bring together key donor agencies to design and fund a common health “sector wide” program.
• Conducting peer learning sessions for ministers of health and their senior staff, designed to share and discuss MLI findings, country-level experiences with health care reform, and best practice case studies.
• Facilitating MLI learning, exchange, and peer support.

The Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, is a program of Realizing Rights in partnership with Results for Development, the Council of Women World Leaders, and the World Health Organization.