Technical and management coaching for government institutions: Lessons learned and health systems transformations across 8 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and India.

Traditional engagement with local governments often relies on financial and human resources from international or local partners, leading to direct implementation by organizations, which can hinder sustainability. While some organizations include sustainability indicators, few focus on transferring technical and financial ownership to governments. The Challenge Initiative (TCI) uses a phased coaching model-lead, assist, observe, and monitor-to build local government capacity for scaling family planning (FP) and adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health (AYSRH) programs.

Boosting Contraceptive Uptake in Urban Uganda: Older Women Benefit When Layering Adolescent and Youth Interventions Onto Existing Family Planning Programming.

Introduction: Uganda has a large young population with a high unmet need for family planning (FP). Although there have been many efforts to improve access to and uptake of contraception, improvements have been slow. The Ministry of Health Uganda partnered with The Challenge Initiative (TCI) to implement a novel multipronged approach layering adolescent and youth sexual reproductive health (AYSRH) onto a functioning general FP program for women of reproductive age in 3 local governments of Buikwe, Mukono, and Iganga.

RAISE: A Management and Organizational Sustainability Tool for Local Governments to Systematically Self-Evaluate the Effectiveness of Their Programs.

Context: Many donor-driven public health programs are now seeking evidence for sustainability prior to investment, creating the need for tools to better appraise these capabilities. Assessing the sustainability of programs and interventions at the local level remains a community-wide challenge.

Program: This article presents a new self-assessment tool, the Reflection and Action to Improve Self-reliance and Effectiveness (RAISE) Tool ("the Tool"), modeled after The Challenge Initiative's (TCI) Sustainability Pillars.

Scaling Access to Contraception for Youth in Urban Slums: The Challenge Initiative's Systems-Based Multi-Pronged Strategy for Youth-Friendly Cities.

Introduction: More than half of all adolescents globally live in Asia, with India having the largest adolescent population in the world at 253 million. In sub-Saharan Africa, adolescents make up the greatest proportion of the population, with 23% of the population aged 10-19. And these numbers are predicted to grow rapidly-particularly in urban areas as rural youth migrate to cities for economic opportunities.