Participatory approach to design : child health care project in Zambia

The design process included team-building and strategic planning workshops; interviews with stakeholders from the Ministry of Health, NGOs, and other donors; field visits; and a synthesis workshop. When surveyed a month after the final workshop, participants maintained that the participatory process, in contrast to a more traditional process, enabled the design team to collect more accurate information on the needs and capabilities of key stakeholder groups, and thus led to a better design. This brief review of USAID/Z"s participatory design of the health project identified four discussion points. (1) Face to face exchange of ideas between outside experts and local stakeholders challenged the experts to adapt their technical perspectives to the Zambian context. (2) Responsiveness to the interests of diverse stakeholders carries with it a risk that the resulting design may be very complex to implement. (3) Although the design process was inclusive at the stakeholder level, it was less so at the end-user level. Field visits could have incorporated more open-ended interviewing techniques, such as participatory rapid appraisal. (4) Participation is an ongoing process: stakeholders" views need to continue to be heard.