Late in 2020, the Togolese Ministry of Health (MoH) put out a call for help. The office of the presidency had given the MoH a clear directive, utilizing the learning partnership model: Figure out how to make maternal health care free. Our NGO, Integrate Health (IH), has been working on innovative approaches to primary health care in Togo since 2004, and we’ve developed a strong collaborative relationship with the ministry over time.

This was a big opportunity, and our team mobilized in response. In a few short months, we developed package options, with cost and impact modeling to show the trade-offs of each. Following a presentation by IH, the MoH made its final recommendation. WEZOU, meaning “breath of life” in the Kabiyé language, was officially launched in 2021, and a core package of key maternal health care interventions became free for the first time to women across Togo, paid for wholly by the government of Togo. The example underscores how government can set an ambitious vision and then leverage NGOs as learning partners to drive positive change at scale.

This article goes beyond the success story to offer a compelling framework for how NGOs can act as learning partners to government, not merely implementers. By testing innovations, breaking down complex models into scalable components, and providing cost and impact data, NGOs like IH help governments make decisions in resource-constrained environments. As global aid declines, this partnership model may hold the key to sustainable, government-led health reform.

Why Do Governments Need the Learning Partnership Model?

While the role of NGOs is to show what is possible, the role of government is to decide what is doable. Governments hold the mandate for national health care delivery and are accountable to their citizens. While all governments have ambitious national plans, including specific targets around mortality reduction, governments in low- and middle-income countries face significant resource constraints. These constraints across budgets, human resources, and infrastructure make it uniquely challenging for governments to take on the risk of testing new ideas and approaches. With philanthropic money, NGOs can take on this risk, developing innovations useful to governments and serving an essential role in government adaptation and implementation. At Integrate Health, we realized early on that this only works if you are seen as a trusted collaborator, and we worked hard to make that happen.

Read the full article about the learning partnership model by Jennifer Schechter, Emily Bensen, and N’Toumbi Tiguida Sissoko at Stanford Social Innovation Review.