On-the-ground Dissemination What works? What fails? (WWWF) is a publication that has charted and helped guide the evolution of the Navrongo Experiment into a national health-care delivery system. Growing from an informal paper newsletter to a series of 90-plus online issues, WWWF shares firsthand knowledge about the process of making primary health care widely accessible to rural people. Lessons from Navrongo and Nkwanta—especially how services were influenced by community opinion, reaction, and advice—are invaluable to the Ghanaians who are scaling up the initiative across their country, and useful for international readers seeking to learn how to foster reform in their countries. Of primary importance are the mechanisms it illuminates for consensus building. WWWF was created in 2001, and Santuah Niagia, Population Council communications specialist and WWWF editor, joined the Council soon afterward.  “Communication is considered absolutely vital to building consensus for organizational change,” says Niagia. “Communities, service providers, and managers develop a real sense of ownership when they are allowed—invited—to participate. What works? What fails? is a road map of how we got from there to here, but it is also a guide for making your own maps of your local terrain.”
Each 1,000-word newsletter contains one article in an easy-to-read format featuring a picture or two. Early issues record how Navrongo evolved by interviewing residents, traditional leaders, nurses, local health volunteers and committee members, government workers, and even a local soothsayer or two. Although Niagia does most of the writing, contributors have ranged from principal investigators to chiefs to volunteers. Paper copies are distributed locally to all local chiefs, community health officers, volunteers, and health committees, and are mailed to the country’s 138 districts and to nurse training institutions, universities, public and institutional libraries, and elsewhere in Ghana, across Africa, and around the world. Copies are also e-mailed to some 300 recipients worldwide. Every year, Niagia arranges the 24 or so new issues by theme in an electronic volume; he is currently assembling all of the issues into a single compendium. All issues are available on the USAID Web site. To join the electronic distribution list, e-mail what_works?@navrongo.mimcom.net. What works? What fails? was made possible through support provided by the Office of Population and Reproductive Health, Bureau for Global Health, USAID, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. (Return to issue contents)
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