Participants:
Nduku Kilonzo – Director;
Ernest Nyamato – Programme Advisor
Program:
MDI-Kenya Class of April 2006
History of the Agency:
LVCT is a Kenyan non-governmental and non-profit organization. Established in 2001, LVCT provides technical assistance to the Government of Kenya (GoK) and partners in strengthening responses to HIV prevention, care and treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS.
LVCT partners with the GoK to strengthen policy, standards and health systems for scaling up quality-assured HIV counseling, testing, care and treatment services. It also helps build capacity in African countries through technical assistance and sub-grants to community-based organizations. Additionally, LVCT delivers HIV and sexual and reproductive health services to vulnerable groups and groups with special needs including survivors of sexual violence, the deaf, men who have sex with men (MSM), prisoners, youth and sex workers.
LVCT has tested almost a million individuals, has been involved in the development of 40% of Kenya’s 1,000 VCT sites, provides care and treatment to 19,000 patients and has trained over 70% of all the 3,600 VCT counselors in Kenya.
CHIP Project:
“LVCT Strategic Planning for Sustainability”
According to LVCT Director Nduku Kilonzo, LVCT had several shortcomings—including lack of strategy, staff cohesion and funding—before the two-person team attended the MDI. Kilonzo viewed the CHIP as a “contract” that committed the organization to making positive changes. After gaining management training at the MDI, LVCT’s CHIP sought to create a new, results-oriented strategic plan with a range of stakeholder buy-in, a 50% increase in funding, and three new donors.
To achieve the CHIP objectives, Nyamato and Kilonzo created a new strategic plan that involved work at all levels of the organization. After developing a framework for the strategic plan, management involved all managers in a SWOT analysis to harmonize strategic and performance targets. They also sought buy-in from a wide range of stakeholders, including staff, management, the Board of Trustees and donors. A critical component of the strategic plan was to include plans to secure and increase funding to cover the costs of the programs in the
strategic plan. Another vital step was to build staff capacity for coordination and resource mobilization so LVCT could handle the challenges of new and bigger programs.
Changes Made:
Creation and implementation of a strategic plan with buy-in from all stakeholders enabled:
- A change in ideology to focus on long-term results, rather than short-term actions.
- A restructured organization with clearer job functions, reflected in a new organogram.
- An increase in capacity because of a stronger management team, resulting from ongoing management training in networking, consensus-building and proposal-writing.
A larger, diversified funding base, as evidenced by a 200% increase from three to nine major donors.
Lessons Learned:
- Because LVCT management had already involved stakeholders in all aspects of the strategic planning process, implementing the strategic plan was a smoother transition.
- Gaining buy-in at the top was vital. With Director buy-in, top management was able to promote the idea to the Board.
- “The MDI was a good catalyst to facilitate change,” Kilonzo reflects. Additionally, continuing success requires “commitment to the change, continued education and willingness to take on leadership versus management.”