The Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health (MLI) led a dialogue on country-driven development at the Global Health Council’s annual conference (June 13-17) through a series of panel discussions that brought together members of MLI’s Washington team with senior delegates from its partner countries Ethiopia, Mali, Nepal, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. Each session drew on the MLI’s experience in the design, implementation, and evaluation of country-driven projects to assess both what has worked in the past and what might be achieved in the future.

Providing the context for MLI’s discussions of country ownership was its recently unveiled global Call to Action, “Country-Led Development in Health: Practical Steps Forward.” The Call, which was launched Tuesday evening, reaffirmed each country partner’s commitment to MLI’s guiding principle of country ownership.

The importance of the Call to Action was apparent in the panel sessions that preceded and followed its launch, beginning with Ethiopia country lead Rahel Gizaw’s Tuesday morning presentation at the Integrating Health Governance into Health Systems Strengthening panel. During her discussion of the MLI-supported Balanced Scorecard initiative in Ethiopia, Rahel credited MLI’s commitment to ensuring that “development partners (are) flexible, willing to listen and follow the priorities defined by country leaders” with “laying the foundation for innovative health policy”.

Further discussion of MLI’s success factors took place during the program’s consecutive panels on Thursday afternoon. The first MLI-sponsored session, If Countries Lead, Will Donors Follow? examined MLI’s advancement of country ownership from the perspective of senior Health Ministry staff.

The second MLI-sponsored session, A Practical Approach to Defining, Supporting, and Evaluating Country-Driven Development: The Ministerial Leadership Initiative, shared the nuts and bolts of how the MLI team in DC worked with countries to achieve their own priorities. R4D Managing Director, Marty Makinen’s term, “leadership through followership” sums up the core idea—partners should listen and be willing to work with policymakers even if their priorities differ.

MLI is a four-year program that seeks to strengthen the leadership capacity of ministries of health in Ethiopia, Mali, Nepal, Senegal, and Sierra Leone to advance policy in three interrelated areas: health financing for equity, donor harmonization in health, and reproductive health. It is a collaborative effort between the Results for Development Institute, the Aspen Institute’s Global Health and Development, and the Council of Women World Leaders.