Strengthening Private Sector Engagement for UHC
WHO supports countries in making better decisions when engaging with the private sector. WHO develops tools to guide country’ decisions and ensure all health system actors, private sector included, work toward the health goals set by the government.
Work in this space is crucial: most health systems are mixed systems, where a mix of public and private providers deliver health related goods and services. As such, there is a strong imperative to find ways to effectively harness the public and private sectors to achieve the SDG health goals and targets, including UHC.
An important challenge in governing mixed health systems relates to the diversity of characteristics and interests of stakeholders involved. All these stakeholders respond in very different ways to governments efforts to achieve UHC. It is necessary to use a variety of tools and incentives to steer different providers toward the UHC goal.
WHO works to support countries to face those challenges. An Advisory group on the governance of the private sector for UHC has been set up by WHO to help with this task. It aims at guiding WHO’s work in this space and is composed of experts with practical experiences working in countries on this crucial topic.
