Partnerships for Health — Special Focus: Service Provision

Abstract

Over the last decade, the global health landscape has undergone dramatic changes. Some of the most prominent of these are a significant rise in development assistance for health, which has increased from USD 5.6 billion in 1990 to USD 28.2 billion in 2008 (IHME, 2012), and the launch of new global health initiatives. Since the turn of the millennium, transnational public-private partnerships (PPPs) have become an established type of governance in global health (Barnes and Brown, 2011; Beisheim et al., 2010; Biesma et al, 2009; Buse, 2004; Liese and Beisheim, 2011; WHO et al, 2009). Estimates suggest that there are now more than 100 PPPs in the global health sector (Buse and Harmer, 2007, p. 260) — much more than in other policy fields such as nutrition and labor rights (Liese, 2009). Transnational health PPPs fulfill a broad range of functions, such as agenda setting, fundraising, research and development, technical assistance to countries, and norm and standard setting. In many low- and middle-income countries, transnational PPPs have also become a key provider of health services such as the distribution of antiretroviral therapies to treat people living with HIV/AIDS, insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) to prevent malaria, and vaccination services to prevent major childhood and communicable diseases such as diarrhea and hepatitis B. Several health PPPs, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund), and the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership, were explicitly founded to accelerate progress toward international health goals, declarations, and resolutions adopted by the United Nations (UN) member states, most notably the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).