Effectiveness of leadership capacity building in the health sector

Abstract

Although there are options available for building health workers’ and health policy makers’ capacity to become stronger leaders (i.e. as public health leaders or managers), there is little evidence that specific training or courses lead to sustainably better leadership and management skills. It is argued that the most effective types of capacity building processes to improve leadership skills in the health sector are monthly intensive training (e.g. ‘Global Nursing Policy Leadership Institute Programme’, GNPLI), or one-year fellowships with mentorship (e.g. ‘Improving Global Health through Learning Development’ programme, IGH) as part of UK-LIC/LMIC partnership programmes.