JOINT ASSESSMENT OF NATIONAL STRATEGIES

Joint assessment is a shared approach to assessing the strengths and weaknesses of a national strategy. The intention is that the assessment is accepted by multiple stakeholders, and can be used as the basis for technical and financial support. Joint Assessment can be applied to a national health strategy (sometimes called the sector strategic plan), to a sub-sector strategy such as the national malaria strategy or multisectoral AIDS strategy.

Joint assessment of national strategies is not a new idea. The reasons for renewed interest in the approach include the increased number of international health actors in recent years, and renewed efforts to get more partners to support a single national health strategy / plan.

The presumed benefits of joint assessment include: strengthening of national strategies; greater partner confidence in those strategies thereby securing more predictable and better aligned funding, and reductions in the transaction costs that arise from multiple assessment and reporting processes.

An IHP+ inter-agency working group has finalised a draft tool and guidelines for joint assessment. This work has included discussion at the IHP+ inter-country teams meeting in June 2009. The next step is to implement and review the Joint Assessment approach and tool in 2009-10. Discussions have started with several countries; others who are interested are encouraged to contact the IHP+ core team.

Principles for implementing joint assessments include:

• it should be country-demand driven and country led;
• it will build on existing in-country processes and experience;
• it will have a strong independent element in the assessment team; and
• it should be inclusive, involving civil society and other stakeholders in the health sector.

A joint assessment will examine the strengths and weaknesses of the following five groups of attributes considered to be the foundation of a 'good' national strategy:

• The situation analysis, and coherence of strategies and plans with this analysis ('programming')
• The process through which national plans and strategies have been developed
• Financing, auditing and procurement arrangements
• Implementation and management arrangements
• Results, monitoring, review and dialogue mechanisms

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