Catalysing the adoption and scale-up of innovative maternal and newborn health interventions within the health system of Uttar Pradesh, India: findings from a qualitative study

Aims •To understand how to catalyse scale-up of externally funded MNH innovations and identify factors enabling or inhibiting their scale-up Definition •‘Scale-up’: increasing the geographical reach of externally funded MNH innovations to benefit a greater number of people beyond grantee programme districts •‘Innovations’: new interventions introduced by grantees to enhance interactions between frontline workers and households Methods • 150 in-depth interviews in 3 geographies in 2012; follow-up in 2014 •Stakeholders in the field of MNH: government; development agencies; civil society; MNH grantees; professional associations; academics/researchers/experts Summary Country contexts–opportunities and challenges of scale-up •Governance and decision making context •Health systems context •Sociocultural context Catalysing scale-up involvesmultiple approaches-no ‘magic bullet’: •Partnership and coordination •Investing time and money •Developing scalable innovations •Strong evidence •Luck! Technical soundnessof grantees/innovations +Awareness of, responsiveness to politics and policy: ‘Scaling-up is a craft rather than a science - political rather than technical’