Giving Compass' Take:

• Kelly Diggins covers the United Nations and SDG Partnership Platform and its discussion on universal healthcare and sustainable development in Kenya.

• How can individual donors increase and promote coordination between organizations and communities to create lasting change?

• Read more about bringing healthcare through community health workers.

“Development is not instant coffee; it takes time,” Arif Neky of the United Nations and SDG Partnerships Platform said during Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ 1.5 day workshop using the findings from the Scaling Solutions initiative, which examines funders’ role in supporting grantees to scale solutions and impact and contribute to systems change.

Read the full article about leveraging partnerships to shift systems in Kenya by Kelly Diggins at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

In 2018, Kenya’s government launched a universal health coverage scheme as part of Kenya’s “Big 4” goals in four pilot counties. If successful, the idea is to replicate and scale up the process for the other 43 counties. This highlights Kenya’s prioritization in achieving SDG 3 – ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. “The trifecta to achieve universal healthcare is 1) partnerships, 2) political will, and 3) appropriate policies,” said Neky.

Focusing on this collective agenda, representatives from all stakeholders that work in health and related sectors – government, United Nations, businesses, foundations, and non-profit organizations – participated in this workshop to delve into opportunities and challenges in achieving this ambitious goal – universal health coverage for Kenya. Together, we examined how our efforts shared the same end goal, how to leverage the strengths of each sector to help create the systemic change needed to reach the goal, and what each sector needed from the others to help achieve the goal and the desired impact. Discussions also focused on scaling an organization’s work and the need for cross-sectoral collaboration. As Ivy Syovata of Philips said, “Silos are not working, and if we are talking about health for all, we have to break the silos and work together.” Bridging work between different sectors helps with resources, behavior change, and shifting norms and policies.

When working on systems change, which is needed for shifting the healthcare system in Kenya, most successful organizations use a combination of interventions to make that leap from incremental change to transformational change. Two organizations that are driving change within the communities where they work are Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO) and Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP). Both of these organizations work at the community level to engage communities and create buy-in so that the solutions offered are more sustainable. Additionally, these two organization have partnered with different sectors of the government, which is another lever towards shifting the paradigm, creating more alignment between stakeholders, and contributing to sustainability.