Developing the Navrongo project with community-based strategic planning

This pilot program was designed to reorient the health service system to the needs of communities. Two basic strategies were developed in this trial: (1) a scheme for redeploying Community Health Nurses to village resident clinics, and equipping them to visit compounds in 90-day outreach cycles; and (2) a scheme, collectively referred to as the Zurugela Approach, for involving traditional leaders, networks, and volunteer mechanisms in health service delivery. This report documents steps in developing the operational details of these two approaches, lessons learned, and implications for the strategic design of a large-scale experiment to be launched in 1995. A one-year consultative process has been completed in which communities were exposed to a program of health and family planning services, involved in the process of operational evaluation, and consulted in the process of planning a new health services system. (Author abstract)