Claire Gapare
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fissure in health systems including many of the long-standing governance challenges between the private and public health sectors. Yet the pandemic has also created an opportunity for public-private engagement. In fact, the COVID-19 emergency has driven the private and public sectors to forge new forms of collaboration and partnerships to tackle the pandemic. For the new way of working together to succeed and endure beyond the current crisis, it requires building a foundation of trust based on effective public-private dialogue (PPD) practices.
A PPD is a tool that was developed through the collective efforts of the World Health Organization, Global Financing Facility and World Bank. It aims to effectively organize, facilitate and sustain PPD initiatives that will yield positive change. This tool shows how to mobilize local resources, relationships, and structures to develop context specific solutions to complex problems in the health sector. It is a formal platform that enables health ministries, private sector providers and civil society to join together to strategically discuss and generate solutions for challenges facing a health system – whether it be COVID-19 today, securing health achievements tomorrow or achieving universal health coverage in the near future. As challenging as a new way of governing sounds, it is not beyond the reach of LMIC governments and their non-governmental stakeholders in the private and civil society sectors. The one-page infographic gives an overview of a detailed PPD guide that highlights the importance of PPD, and the steps and good practices necessary for effective and sustainable PPD. The World Bank, GFF, and WHO hopes this new PPD tool will assist relevant stakeholders to strategically discuss and generate solutions for the challenges facing their health system in the journey towards universal health coverage. You can download the “Public-Private Dialogue: A Practical Guide for developing countries” infographic here.
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