Public-Private Partnerships

This presentation reviews the global experience of contracting and discusses two spedific examples of contracting in Cambodia and Bangladesh.

This presentation was part of the International Conference on Global Health session, “Answering the Call: Innovations in Human Resources by African Faith-Based Organizations.” From the perspective of the Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau experience, the presentation discusses why the private not-for-profit sector is important in service provision and training; why nurses are in the midst of the human resource crisis; obastacles to increasing the training capacity; and what the PNFP health training institutions are doing to address their weaknesses. [adapted from author]

Pathfinder has provided community-based family planning and reproductive health services to women and men throughout the developing world for over 50 years. Partnerships with local governments and Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) allow Pathfinder access into
communities to provide information and services. These local organizations provide a solid, established network through which Pathfinder reaches people. Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs) are a vital extension of this network. [author’s description]


This report provides information on: the process of building relationships; partn

This report presents the findings from an assessment of the contraceptive method mix in Myanmar focusing on birth spacing, the providers of birth spacing services (public, private, NGO) and the information needs of these health pracitioners. [adapted from publisher’s summary]

This report describes highlights from the Doctors We Trust Project in St. Petersburg and the Together We Are Stronger Project in Kaliningrad. Both projects focused onthe limitations of health care for vulnerable groups in St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad. The key strategy was to build cooperative links between government agencies and NGOs, uniting those who control public medical facilities and those who work most closely with vulnerable populations. The goal was to strengthen the NGOs’ capacity to provide care, while helping the governmental sector and medical personnel better understand and respond to the needs of people living with HIV and AIDS (PLHA) and other vulnerable groups.

The World Bank commissioned the Center for Development Communication (CDC) to develop a communication strategy to help boost public-private partnerships in the African continent. CDC consulted with key informants and stakeholders identified by the World Bank’s Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) working group in order to develop a stakeholder analysis to help inform the larger communication strategy. This report summarizes the results of that consultation. [from executive summary]

This report discusses the impacts of malaria on business. It reviews the academic literature on the impacts of malaria on economies and businesses, presents data from survey on the business impacts of malaria, discusses the actions the private sector can take to combat malaria, and reviews examples of business malaria programs. The final section makes some recommendations for businesses considering engagement in malaria control. [adapted from author]

This publication is part of a series that highlights some of the key challenges, opportunities and practical examples that were identified in dialogues among over 400 leaders in business, government, development agencies, civil society, and academia to share good practices and identify practical and feasible models of collective business action and public-private partnership aimed at achieving more systemic and scalable solutions to global challenges. It makes recommendations for ways that companies can get directly engaged in specific initiatives on-the-ground. [adapted from author]

This report describes opportunities for engaging and supporting a well managed and effectively regulated private sector to improve the region’s health. This report highlights the critical role the private sector can play in meeting health care needs in Sub-Saharan Africa. It also identifies policy changes that governments and international donors can make to enable the private sector to take on an ever more meaningful role in closing Africa’s health care gap. [adapted from publisher]

Contracting with non-state entities, including non-governmental organisations, has been proposed as a means for improving health care delivery, and the global experience with such contracts is reviewed here. The ten investigated examples indicate that contracting for the delivery of primary care can be very effective and that improvements can be rapid. [from author]

Private health care plays a central role in health-care provision in many developing countries hat have a high burden of TB. It is therefore encouraging that public-private partnerships (PPM) are being set up in various countries around the world to explore possible interaction between the national TB programs and other partners in the fight against TB. The objective of this review was to use the published literature to asses the range of providers included in PPMs for their ability to provide case-detection services for the vulnerable. [abstract]

This toolkit aims to assist in the preparation and use of health services contracts. The term “contract” is used here to cover any form of document that provides a quantified specification of the health services outputs expected from given financial inputs within a given time period and to defined quality standards, and that is used to guide and control the behaviour of both the payer of those financial inputs and the provider of the specified service outputs. [author’s description]

This presentation was part of the International Conference on Global Health session, “The Future is Here: Private Sector Contracting in Low-Income Countries.” It provides a review of the global experience in contracting, specific examples, a summary of the main issues with contracting and some take home messages.

In 1999, Cambodia contracted out management of government health services to NGOs in five districts that had been randomly made eligible for contracting. The contracts specified targets for maternal and child health service improvement. The program increased the availability of 24-hour service, reduced provider absence, and increased supervisory visits. There is some evidence it improved health. The program involved increased public health funding, but led to roughly offsetting reductions in private expenditure as residents in treated districts switched from unlicensed drug sellers and traditional healers to government clinics.

Government contracting of private organizations is an increasingly common tool to meet the growing demand for quality reproductive health care in developing nations. This guide brings together information about such contracting experiences in a way to serve the practical needs of World Bank staff and their government counterparts in developing countries interested in trying contracting. [introduction]

Contracting out public services is a way for governments to complement their own delivery of services. It is particularly effective for high risk or hard-to-reach populations that can be more effectively served by private groups. It can also contribute to more efficient delivery of primary health care. [from introduction]

This primer introduces key aspects of contracting and summarizes key lessons from countries’ experiences in contracting-out. In doing so, it is intended to serve the practical needs of contracting practicioners in developing countries that are considering contracting as a way to deliver RH/FP services. Intended users include country-level decision makers, contract operation managers, and mission officers and advisers from donor agencies. [publisher’s description]

The objective of this document is to implement and evaluate a public–private partnership to deliver the internationally recommended strategy DOTS for the control of tuberculosis (TB) in Lalitpur municipality, Nepal, where it is estimated that 50% of patients with TB are managed in the private sector. [author’s description]

This presentation discusses the current climate and prospects for health partnerships between the private and public sectors in Africa. [from presentation]

[This case study evaluates the] Drug Resources Enhancement against AIDS and Malnutrition (DREAM) program, created by the Community of Sant’Egidio to fight AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. The project takes a holistic approach, combining Highly Active Anti- Retroviral Therapy (HAART) with the treatment of malnutrition, tuberculosis, malaria, and sexually transmitted diseases. It also strongly emphasizes health education at all levels. DREAM aims to achieve its goals in line with the gold standard for HIV treatment and care. [author’s description]

During the past few years, a number of key donor programs have scaled up their global response to the crisis of HIV and AIDS… The goal of this paper is to begin a discussion among donors, international and local NGOs, and multilateral and U.S. government representatives on how to effectively engage indigenous partners and transfer much-needed resources. [from preface]

JHPIEGO has been working since 1991 to support the development of a national integrated clinical training system used for both family planning/reproductive health (FP/RH) preservice education and inservice training in Turkey. In summary, this project has made substantial gains in meeting the USAID/Turkey results package from the Strategic Objective, Increased Utilization of FP/RH Services, through Intermediate Result 2, Expansion of High Quality FP/RH Services in the Public and Private Sectors, and two Sub-Results-2.1 Increased Availability of Postpartum and Postabortion FP Services and 2.3 Improved Job Performance of Health Providers, Trainers, and Administrators. It has been successful in assisting the MOH, medical institutions, and midwifery schools to establish a national, integrated training system capable of sustaining high-quality preservice education programs for interns and midwives. The inservice training system that has been established will support the MOH in their effort to expand FP/RH training to other provinces in coming years. The preservice education system will support all university-based midwifery school students by strengthening their FP/RH and maternal health skills as they progress toward their degree. [adapted from publisher]

Beginning in 1992, JHPIEGO worked in close collaboration with the Bolivia Ministry of Health (MOH) to develop an integrated family planning/reproductive health (FP/RH) training network throughout the country. The focus of the assistance was the establishment of nine national training centers (NTCs) for inservice training conducted by physician-nurse teams and located at departmental maternity hospitals in departmental capitals. By 2000, the government of Bolivia and other stakeholders had shifted the training emphasis to preservice education efforts. JHPIEGO preservice assistance focused on improving FP/RH education in three medical and nine nursing schools, and the role of the training teams at the NTCs moved toward supporting the preservice education efforts.

This paper reviews some experiences of social agencies contracting with the private sector to provide health care services. It focuses on the capacity of this mechanism to improve access to services by the poor. The term private sector is used to cover both for-profit and not-for-profit providers of health services. The paper draws on these experiences to suggest some lessons and basic guidelines for contracting. [author’s description]

This paper presents an overview of the variety of activities cooperating agencies (CA) have undertaken in collaboration with the private sector to extend coverage of priority health services. USAID has defined priority health care services to include maternal and child health, reproductive health, family planning, and sexually transmitted diseases/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome services. The general methods of collaboration employed, types of private providers and services involved, and geographic regions and populations covered are described. An assessment of the collaboration is also included, incorporating an analysis of how the different aspects of these projects are combined.

This study describes the work of the Choose to Care initiative of the Catholic Church in Southern Africa which began in 2000. It shows that effective scaling-up of programmes in the response to HIV does not necessarily have to be the expansion of a single central service. Working through the diocesan and parish system,…the Catholic Church scaled up service provision by the replication of smaller scale programmes rooted in and responsive to the needs expressed by local communities in this five-country area. This study shows that such an approach is effective when undertaken within common guidelines and given central support.

This presentation was part of the International Conference on Global Health session, “Answering the Call: Innovations in Human Resources by African Faith-Based Organizations.” It details several collaborative efforts between the MOH and various FBOs and the impact they have had on HRH in DR Congo.

Health care labor is central to managing and delivering health services. Because recruitment and retention policies are key issues for purchasers, gaining insights into labor-purchasing mechanisms may permit them to be addressed more effectively. This paper is intended to provide a brief introduction to health care labor purchasing and the mechanisms through which it can have an impact on the delivery of health services and on health system performance. A framework is developed to foster understanding of health labor purchasing mechanisms. [abstract]

The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) was established in 1999 to finance and speed the delivery of new and improved vaccines for children in the developing world. Through collaborative leadership and international funding, GAVI aims to improve health in developing countries, increase international public health equity, and serve as a model for others in the global health community. However, this paper questions the extent to which GAVI can actually achieve its goals. GAVI has not received unanimous support because it competes for the limited supply of skilled professionals in developing countries and subordinates country-specific health need to its own purposes.

GRHAM is a CCIH initiative, in collaboration with numerous partners, to increase the awareness of Faith-based Organizations (FBOs) in providing essential health services around the world. GRHAM strives to put FBOs and Christian Health Associations (CHAs) “on the map” to improve networking, including collaboration with and between christian health associations, medical missions, ministries of health and multilateral donors. [from website description]