TCI Mini-University Diffuses High-Impact Interventions from Bauchi to Nasarawa State

Contributors: Nneoma Anieto, Deborah Samaila and Rabi Ekele

TCI mini-university participants from Nasarawa State with the high-performing Bauchi State team.

In Nigeria, TCI supports selected states to implement proven, high-impact interventions to improve their family planning outcomes. In an effort to diffuse these interventions throughout the country and make sure they are sustained beyond TCI’s lifespan, the Nigeria team recently unveiled its mini-university program.

Through the mini-university, states in Nigeria not supported by TCI but interested in the model are introduced to high-impact family planning interventions being implemented in TCI-supported states. The mini-university also allows new states joining TCI to learn from high-performing TCI-supported states that are nearing the end of their engagement with TCI (what TCI refers to as “graduation”). The new states are inspired by experiential learning activities conducted by government staff from the high-performing TCI states.

In December 2020, TCI held its first ever mini-university in Nigeria. Seven government staff from TCI’s newest state, Nasarawa, visited high-performing Bauchi state to learn from its experiences implementing the TCI’s high-impact family planning interventions.

Presentation of certificates at the end of the mini-university.

The visiting team from Nasarawa was coached by the Bauchi state government staff using a variety of learning techniques, including presentations, experience sharing and field visits. Some of the training topics covered included TCI’s coaching and technical assistance strategy, transformational leadership approach to programming, relevance of advocacy to family planning programming, and TCI’s demand generation, service delivery and research, monitoring and evaluation interventions. The Nasarawa team also participated in a field visit to Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area (LGA) in Bauchi where they observed a bimonthly review meeting held with social mobilizers from the LGA and learned about the benefits of TCI’s coaching activities in transferring capacity.

The mini-university program lasted three days with experience sharing and coaching conducted by Bauchi state staff with support from the TCI technical support team embedded within the Bauchi state government. The Executive Chairman of the Bauchi State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr. Rilwanu Mohammed, welcomed the Nasarawa team to Bauchi state and presented them with certificates at the end of the mini-university. Dr. Mohammed shared:

Bauchi state has benefitted from TCI’s support to the state and requests that the team from Nasarawa state pay close attention to what we have learned and experienced, so you can succeed in your partnership with TCI and perform even better than Bauchi state in improving your family planning landscape.”

As a result of the mini-university, the Nasarawa state team has gained skills to adopt and replicate TCI’s high-impact interventions. In addition, TCI successfully tested out a new program for continuing to strengthen state government capacity through its coaching strategy, in which high-performing state government teams transfer their new founded capacity to new states, ensuring the likelihood for diffusion and sustainability of TCI’s high-impact interventions throughout Nigeria.