Guiding an intersectoral consortium to improve sexual health programming

Challenge

The SHARE project represented Right To Play’s (RTP) first time leading a consortium initiative, and it was a significant one as it entailed collaboration with three additional organizations, involving nearly 100 project staff across seven countries, working together to execute a five-year, $36 million health project that is intended to support over 300,000 beneficiaries - while having to follow stringent donor requirements and utilize rigorous approaches to Results Based Management. Given the consortium structure, RTP’s standard organizational processes and structures often did not apply, requiring processes and systems to either be adapted or created from scratch at nearly every juncture.

Additionally, I joined the organization after the project was already mid-stream into its planning. My predecessor had left the role at a critical inflection point, leaving the SHARE team with only six weeks to finalize the Project Implementation Plan required by the donor for the five year life of the initiative.


Response:

  • Building strong relationships with project leads across organizations, with RTP colleagues in country, and with donor representatives. This meant focusing on understanding the motivations, competencies, challenges and contexts of each partner organization and each focal person

  • Coordinating three, week-long consortium visits to Ghana, Uganda, and Mozambique, supporting the project's start up phase; utilized participatory processes to establish relationships and integrate knowledge of +75 project staff as well as external stakeholders

  • Established project management information system (via Microsoft Teams) to enable centralized, asynchronous, and transparent communication

  • Continually monitoring and reviewing communication and meeting structures through formal and informal mechanisms, and adopting governance processes as required

  • Proactively identifying potential risks and where needed engaging senior leadership teams for resolution

  • Working with multiple departments within RTP and senior RTP leadership to create and define processes for internal management of consortium based initiatives

  • Establishing clear guidelines and templates to guide key planning review and reporting processes from consortium partners


Key Results

  • During the first year of project implementation, the project engaged 83,564 project participants/beneficiaries (42,999 female / 40,565 male)

  • All grant planning, reporting, and compliance documents were submitted on schedule and approved by the donor, including the life-of-project Project Implementation Plan (PIP)

  • My annual performance review (which included an anonymous survey among colleagues to collect 360 degree feedback) indicated a very strong performance across all categories of evaluation. Examples of anonymous responses available upon request

  • Lessons learned have been captured and disseminated to support other pending Right To Play projects focused on themes of sexual health and reproductive rights

Note: the project is still in progress. Mid-term results are expected in Fall 2024 and final results are expected in Spring 2026

Additional Information

See video interviews with a project stakeholder here