Two leadership training workshops for nursing leaders were conducted at the Health Services Academy, in December, 2005 - January, 2006, and May - June, 2006. The training was successfully completed by 40 senior nurses from federal and provincial health institutions. The training was sponsored by the Women Health Project, Ministry of Health. These courses endeavored to develop nurses as effective leaders and managers so as to fill the identified need of the senior management nurses at the federal and provincial level to play an active role in planning and policy making.

The course has been developed as continuous professional development of the managers in the nursing sector in Pakistan. This was an intensive and participatory course specially designed for the administration and management cadre of nurses. Keeping in view the skills needed by the nurses for new and challenging roles and ability to participate fully in health planning, policy and management the course focused on the identified need in the Pakistani context. The nursing leaders were introduced to the new concepts and state-of-the-art best practices with an overview of the global and national needs so that they do not work in isolation and be part of the mainstream.

The course objectives were to inculcate understanding of health system with introduction of systems thinking. At the end of the course the participants will be able to think and plan strategically so as to improve the quality and efficiency of their institutions. The participants were familiarized with the public sector planning with special focus on PC-1s. The training consisted of lectures and participatory exercises. The main impetus was on participatory learning rather than lectures only. The expected outcome was that the participants should be able to understand various concepts and acquire the appropriate skills and be able to apply these during the course of their work.

The course was of two weeks duration and offered in two phases. The first phase focused on the basic concepts and principles of planning and management, followed by the second phase in which the participants built on the issues discussed in the first phase and translated these into actual plans. In addition, some cross-cutting issues like continuous quality improvement were also be discussed. The dates for the course were as follows:

In attendance was Mrs. Shaheena Masud, Project Director, Women's Health Project, as well as Mr. Malik Sher Afzal, the Deputy Director and sponsor of the Women's Health Project.