About two weeks into my fellowship at FHI 360, I had the opportunity to participate in an event series on innovation from FHI’s Strategy and Innovation Office. The series was designed to engage external innovation practitioners to inspire discussion about innovation culture as FHI sets out to develop an innovation strategy. Kippy Joseph, Senior Advisor to the Global Innovation Fund, spoke extensively about managing innovation for development impact. As a global public health student pursuing the Certificate in Innovation for Public Good (CIPG) at UNC, I often ask myself how social innovation in global development is held accountable. While drug trials adhere to rigorous standards, social innovation for impact often relies on guesswork, hindering progress in advancing the public good. It is imperative that managing innovation for development impact becomes a constant pursuit of excellence in designing impactful systems worldwide, even if the process may be slow or deliberate. The cost of getting it wrong is simply too high.
Sometimes, the field of global health fails to redesign systems solely because one solution has worked temporarily (often for at least 30 years), even when it does not achieve maximum impact. The innovation space for certain diseases is limited or not challenged enough.
As an FHI 360-UNC Global Health Research Fellow this year, I have the privilege of supporting the Total Quality Leadership and Accountability (TQLA) team within the West Africa and Middle East Regional Office (WAMERO). TQLA, FHI’s innovative and adaptive management approach, has demonstrated its ability to drive performance, enhance implementers’ accountability at all levels, strategically prioritize local solutions using data, and ultimately address development challenges to improve outcomes. As a research fellow, I will be responsible for documenting TQLA’s impact over the years, starting with the evidence generated from its application to the Global Fund’s National Aligned HIV/AIDS Initiative (NAHI) in 13 states in Nigeria. The evidence we gather will be instrumental in developing technical guidance for strengthening local organizations’ capacity. It will be widely disseminated to catalyze policy dialogues centered around strengthening the leadership and capacity of individuals in Nigeria and other regions. Additionally, this evidence will contribute to creating technical tools to promote social innovation and learning, transparency, and accountability, and foster local leadership and ownership in health development assistance.
As an innovation strategy, TQLA is spearheading greater accountability within social innovation to reduce guesswork in our approach to global development challenges, including global health threats like HIV/AIDS. I would like to thank my preceptor, Dr. Robert Chiegil, for the opportunity to be part of this team and to experience the importance of accountability in social innovation and policy.
-Sena Kpodzro