South Africa’s second National Action Plan for Health Security (NAPHS) risked repeating the delays of its first because it launched without a working monitoring system. To close that gap, the National Focal Point set up quarterly implementation reviews, bringing technical leads together across ministries, departments and provinces. With support from Resolve to Save Lives’ Program Management for Epidemic Preparedness (PMEP) program, the reviews turned monitoring into a routine, action-oriented practice rather than a paperwork exercise.
Key findings:
- Implementation of the two-year operational plan rose from 16% after six months to 35% after 12 months
- Reporting compliance improved from nine of 19 technical areas updating data ahead of quarterly reviews to all 19
- South Africa’s health security architecture score rose 36 percentage points, from 7/25 to 16/25, with the largest gains in accessible tracking systems
- Quarterly reviews surfaced and helped resolve bottlenecks in financing, legal reform and cross-sector leadership
These findings show how simple, well-facilitated monitoring routines, not new tools alone, drive sustained progress on national health security plans.
