Module 2 | Planning

Overview

Stategic Planning answers the question:

What objectives should we pursue to address the problem?

Strategic planning differs from normal, or incremental planning. Incremental planning involves defining the ways and means to accomplish a set objective or to reach an intended destination. Strategic planning is the process of selecting the best destination or objective, out of a range of possible alternatives. It is often said that incremental planning asks: “Are we doing things right?” whereas strategic planning asks “Are we doing the right things”?

Incremental planning and strategic planning are complementary, and both are essential to ensure the best use of resources in responding to HIV/AIDS. If your organization already has a set objective or destination, and your task is to execute it, your main planning work will likely be incremental planning. In the APDIME Framework, the key tasks of incremental planning are addressed in Module 3: Design.

The Purpose of Strategic Planning

This module introduces the strategic planning process. At this point, you have completed the assessment phase of your strategic program design. In Module 2, you will be guided through the strategic planning process with steps, tools, resources, and examples to assist you to formulate a plan that will support the efficient and effective management of available resources for HIV/AIDS prevention, care and support, and impact mitigation.


Who Should Use this Module?

Every organization or agency that is considering implementing an HIV/AIDS/STI program contributing to their country’s HIV/AIDS response, whether at the international, national, regional, district, or local level, should go through a strategic planning process. However, relevant questions, tools, and assumptions may vary depending on the organization and agency. Different organizations are able to provide different services dependent on their size, structure, experience, human capital, resources, available technology and specialization. An organization’s ‘comparative advantage’ is their ability to provide certain services more efficiently and effectively than other organizations. Strategic planning ensures that the best programming objectives are chosen to meet the need, taking account of organizations different missions, roles and comparative advantage, within the available resources.

Determine your Comparative Advantage Adapted from The Participation Toolkit; A USAID Health Population & Nutrition Officer’s Guide to Using Participatory Approaches for Managing HIV/AIDS Activities, Health Technical Services Project, TvT Associates and The Pragma Corporation, page 26.

A participatory analysis of an organization’s comparative advantage should include the following considerations:

1) What are our strengths?
2) What are the strengths of other actors and how do these relate to or complement our strengths?
3) What are our weaknesses and how can we strengthen them?
4) What are the comparative weaknesses of other actors and how can these be strengthened?
5) What are the opportunities which exist in the programming environment and how can we capitalize on them?
6) What are the threats which exist in the programming environment and how can they be mitigated?

Strategic planning is often associated with large-scale national HIV/AIDS programs and initiatives that originate at the national government level. However, strategic planning is also essential to small-scale programs. Smaller organizations are more likely to be constrained by limited resources. These circumstances can make planning seem like a luxury, but strategic planning will help to ensure a small organization’s programs maximize their impact and make the greatest contribution to the overall national HIV/AIDS control effort. A major accomplishment of UNAIDS has been to lead every country through a strategic planning process to develop medium- term plans. Organizations having the capacity to undertake national comprehensive HIV/AIDS programming can follow the Guide to the strategic planning process for a national response to HIV/AIDS UNAIDS (1998) Geneva


Over the last few years, there has been a philosophical shift to planning, and much of it has become decentralized. Priorities may be set at the national level, while strategies are developed at the local level. Alternatively, local-level objectives and priority areas may shape the national strategic plan. Strategic planning is equally relevant to decentralized approaches.

STRATEGY

A strategy is a plan to achieve a particular goal or result. A good strategy communicates a clear path from where you are to where you are trying to go; that is, it captures the necessary and sufficient steps or activities required in order to accomplish your objectives. A strategy also should communicate the rationale that lets you to choose one particular path over others. “To plan is to choose” (Julius Nyerere), and your strategy reveals the logic of your choices. Just as it helps you to see clearly what must be done, your strategy should help you recognize things that are not essential to achievement of your objectives. Things that could absorb resources and divert you from cost-efficient progress towards achieving your goals. A good strategy is also a realistic one; it explains choices that are made to suit the social, political, and economic context of your program.


A Definition of Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is a process for making informed, evidence-based decisions about how to most efficiently and effectively achieve a measurable change toward a defined and specific goal. More specifically, it involves identifying clearly articulated goals, objectives, targets, and the strategies and broad-based activities that will be required to achieve them over time. This is a process requires vision.

[LINK] Creating a Vision http://www.nsba.org/sbot/toolkit/cav.html Offers aid in identifying an improved future, with clearly articulated goals, objectives, targets, and the strategies and broad-based activities that will be required to achieve these goals and objectives.

[LINK]The Universal Framework of Objectives (UFO) for HIV/AIDS http://www.iaen.org/library/usaidtech.pdf | local pdf
The UFO provides a vision for HIV/AIDS—an ideal snapshot of all the things that need to be done to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The strategic planning process that makes up the second module of the Synergy APDIME Toolkit guides organizations through decision-making for programming most suited to their mission and comparative advantage and one that maximizes their program contribution to achieving the UFO.

Because the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic changes over time, the response must be flexible and coordinated. Scarcity of money, time, and other resources means that each effort must be practical, well-developed and carefully chosen. Hence, strategic planning is a cyclical process that:

  • Allows for an informed, realistic, and viable decision-making process
  • Ensures that limited resources are concentrated in priority areas where they are likely to have the greatest impact on the HIV/AIDS epidemic
  • Anticipates and plans for the delayed long-term effects of the epidemic
  • Makes the best use of human and institutional strengths and capacities.

Strategic Planning vs. Planning -- What is the difference? [I-Link to Planning and Strategic Planning Crosscutting Analysis]

Planning results in the formulation of a design or of a series of activities.

Strategic planning emphasizes the importance of the need top anlayze the gap between the current situation and the ideal, and optimizing interventions by considering the organizations comparative advantage and targeting resources to achieve the greatest impact.

The Necessity of Strategic Planning

Strategic planning helps you begin to fine-tune your approach and build support for program initiatives. The intent is to create a goal, a purpose, objectives, and ultimately, a strategy for dealing with the existing situation. Strategic planning helps you save money, weed out ineffective interventions, build new partnerships, develop strategies that work, and significantly address the needs of people affected by HIV/AIDS.

Potential uses for the strategic planning process:

  • Mobilizing effective partnerships
  • Building a synergistic framework for coordination and stakeholder participation in the shaping of a comprehensive response to HIV/AIDS
  • Building stakeholder commitment
  • Minimizing duplication and overlap in service delivery
  • Leveraging resources, and heightening transparency and accountability
  • Enhancing absorptive capacity to achieve rapid scale-up, including optimizing the use of increased funding and donor support for HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment services, and establishing a broad-based operational framework for achieving measurable results and outcomes
  • Optimizing the use of available and/or existing resources in resource-constrained settings
  • Resolving resource allocation dilemmas and constraints
  • Identifying key partners and stakeholders to mobilize an effective multi-sectoral response (MSR) at community, district, or national levels
  • Expanding geographic coverage and access to services
  • Balancing goals for prevention and care
  • Scaling up existing activities
  • Linking services and expanding the range of service points for HIV/AIDS care, treatment, and prevention.

Vocabulary: Strategic Planning
[I-link to Glossary]

Goal: The proposed long-range benefits of the program for a specified area, defined in general terms. A goal is the ultimate objective; for example, “reducing the incidence of HIV in (a country).” One program alone is not likely to be able to achieve this objective, but the program contributes to reaching it.

Purpose: The overall objective (also called strategic objective) of the program, for example, “to increase the accessibility to and use of palliative care facilities in (a particular geographic area).” The program should be able to achieve this objective if the design is successfully implemented. The purpose is the ultimate measure of the program’s effectiveness.

Objectives: The anticipated outcomes or benefits that are the expected results of implementing a strategy. They are described in measurable terms and indicate a specific period of time during which these results will be achieved. Objectives should be SMART (specific, measurable, appropriate, realistic, and time-bound).

Performance Target: A specific change or result to be achieved within a set time frame.

Approach: A statement that describes how the program will achieve its objective. That is, activities that will help the program achieve its objectives most effectively and feasibly.

Stakeholder Commitment: An intrinsic and sustainable motivation of stakeholders to act to achieve objectives. Stakeholders are likely to support what they help to create. Commitment is associated with a strong sense of achievement, involvement, influence, fairness, and trust.

The Core Elements of a Strategic Plan

Strategic planning builds on the assessment process and analyes collected data to define priority objectives and strategies for national, regional, and/or community-level responses to the epidemic. Through the use of a dynamic, participatory process, a strategic plan identifies the critical elements of an effective HIV/AIDS program, contributing to the national comprehensive response, within the constraints of:
1. Time (usually three to five years) to achieve the results
2. Finite human and capital resources
3. Existing management structures
4. Prevailing legislative, political and social environments
5. The communities’ level of readiness and commitment.

The Strategic Planning Process

Some key activities in strategic planning are:
1. Mobilize key stakeholders
2. Review assessment findings
3. Agree a shared vision of an improved future
4. Identify priority intervention areas and needs using strategic criteria
a. Maximum impact (effectiveness, relevance, efficiency)
b. Ethical soundness
c. Implementing organization’s role, culture and comparative advantage
d. Sustainability
5. Develop goals, objectives and targets
6. Identify approaches for each priority objective
7. Identify broad activities for each strategy
8. Develop the budget and other resource requirements for the plan
9. Define roles of current and potential implementing partners
10. Review with key stakeholders.

n.b. activities 4,5,6 are iterative—being repeated cyclically until the ‘best fit’ for programming is found within the available resources.

Strategic Planning Resources

[LINK] The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief http://www.state.gov/s/gac/ I local pdf
In January 2004, President Bush announced the creation of a fifteen billion dollar, five-year comprehensive United States government strategy to provide global relief for the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief defines the strategic direction of the United States Government and describes forecasted activities in the focus countries in the areas of HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment through existing United States Government bilateral programs. It declares renewal of commitment and leadership to the more than 60 existing United States Government bilateral program countries. It promotes the worldwide response to HIV/AIDS through its international partnerships, including The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Organizations interested in applying for funding from The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief would benefit from consulting this document.

[LINK] Assessment and Planning http://erc.msh.org/mainpage.cfm?fil
e=2.1.0.htm&module=hr&language=English
This is a webpage on the Management Sciences for Health (MSH) Website. It contains links related to assessment and planning. There are a number of readings and tools on ‘thinking strategically’ and developing plans and proposals for new initiatives here that may prove useful.

[LINK] Western Regional Health Authority Reproductive Health Strategic Planning Workshop http://www.futuresgroup.com/Documents/JAMWRHA.pdf
This is a summary of a two-day workshop held in January 2002 in Jamaica on developing an action plan for reproductive health for the Western region. In addition to a workshop report, PowerPoint presentation and photographs, this document contains a number of appendices that should be helpful in the initial stages of the planning process. Four action plans are included as well.

[LINK] Planning Models
http://www.comminit.com/planning_models.html
This is a collection of more than 70 different planning models from a wide range of organizations. The Communication Initiative has brought these together in a short, summary form, and this resource will enable you to access a number of different ideas quickly. For those who seek more information, sources are listed as well, and can often be accessed via a link.

[TOOL] “Planning Our Response to HIV/AIDS” http://www.policyproject.com/pubs/countryreports/AIDSps.pdf I local pdf
This is a step-by-step guide to HIV/AIDS planning for the Anglican Communion from the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa and The POLICY Project in South Africa. The planning framework came about from a 2001 conference with more than 100 delegates from sub-Saharan African countries. This document is informative and provides a unique look into the planning process, from getting participants involved, to developing objectives and implementing monitoring and evaluation. Managers hoping to develop strategic plans with a large number of participants are encouraged to view this document.

[RESOURCE] What do I need to know before I start the planning process? Alliance for Nonprofit Management
http://www.allianceonline.org/FAQ/strategic_planning/what_do_i_need_to_know.faq
This is a short outline from the Alliance for Nonprofit Management of some of the issues related to the initial stages of the planning process. Specifically it answers the question, “What do I need to know before I start the planning process?” The issues covered in this outline will likely be covered in other, more comprehensive toolkits; however for those interested in a direct answer to the aforementioned question, it may be of use.

[RESOURCE] Strategic Planning-Long Term Planning, Lewis Grant Associates.
http://lgausa.com/strategic_planning.htm
This is a brief outline of the key elements of long-term strategic planning from Lewis Grant Associates, an organization based in the United States, helping international organizations in Africa and Asia with strategic and project planning issues. Some different approaches to strategic planning are briefly described in this outline, however it contains little more than a few sentences of explanation. This outline will serve those seeking to learn more about organizations that work on facilitating strategic planning sessions, rather than about strategic planning itself.

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