Webinar: Adapting Participatory Learning and Action beyond Maternal and Newborn Health

Over the last 20 years the PLA group methodology has predominantly been used to improve maternal and newborn health and reduce mortality.

However, historically, community mobilisation approaches have been used much more broadly. Indeed, evidence suggests that the success of the PLA group methodology in maternal and newborn health is at least partially explained by its ability to trigger multiple impacts on a broader set of cross-cutting global health challenges. The power of PLA seems to be is ability to improve 100 things by 1%, rather than improving one thing by 100%.

So, does the future for PLA, much like the past, lie in addressing a wider set of global health challenges?

In this webinar we sought to answer this question by exploring how the PLA group methodology is currently being applied beyond maternal and newborn health and the considerations that need to be taken into account when adapting PLA.

Moderated by Dr. Joanna Morrison, Senior Research Associate at the UCL Institute for Global Health, these discussions were supported by two examples of adapting PLA beyond maternal and newborn health. Professor Kishwar Azad, Director of the Bangladesh Diabetic Association - Perinatal Care Project, presented the experience of successfully adapting PLA to prevent Type-2 diabetes in rural Bangladesh. Annemijn Sondaal, Programmes Manager at Women and Children First, presented the experience of adapting PLA to improve family planning uptake in Ethiopia.