Beyond Pragmatism: Appraising UN-Business Partnerships

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UNRISD PROGRAMME ON MARKETS, BUSINESS AND REGULATION PAPER NUMBER 1 Assessing the contribution of global health partnerships Systematic monitoring, impact assessment and evaluation (both internal and external) appear to be taken more seriously in global multipartner health partnerships (Lele et al. 2004). 50 These assessments cover a wide range of issues, going beyond investigating how far the initiatives actually meet their direct intended goals to analysing the broader implications (see annex 2). 51 In particular, there is concern that the proliferation of horizontal relationships that characterize the growing number of public-private partnerships at the global level will fragment international cooperation in health and undermine the capacity of the WHO, which comprises 192 governments, to set standards and global health priorities and policies, and to coordinate action. 52 Another problem is that, as indicated earlier, the growing numbers of PPPs are funded largely by philanthropic foundations, which puts into question the sustainability of these partnership initiatives, as such funding modalities are often not conducive to establishing longterm programmes at country and local levels. This suggests that greater attention needs to be given to how the growing patchwork of alliances and partnerships in health could be turned into a system of global health governance built on existing organizations, common values and agreed regimes, in order to promote global public goods in the field of health, including research and development on health, the generation and dissemination of knowledge, norms and regulatory standards. In other words, while the determinants of health and the measures to address health problems have become increasingly subject to transnational forces, intergovernmental collaboration is becoming more and more essential. This becomes clear from the assessment of global public-private partnerships that provide access to donated or discounted pharmaceutical drugs in low- and middle-income countries (Caines and Lush 2004). This synthesis report draws on studies in Botswana, Sri Lanka, Uganda and Zambia that analyse global PPPs addressing tropical diseases and HIV/AIDS. 53 With respect to global PPPs providing access to drugs for tropical (infectious and parasitic) diseases, the main findings were that the involvement of multinational R&D-based pharmaceutical firms had indeed facilitated improved availability of drugs. Regarding implementation, most PPPs were well integrated into services, with programmes following customary national systems for vector-borne diseases. In almost all systems, there had been a positive impact on health systems. The studies found no evidence of unreasonable conditionalities, impaired national ownership, distortion of national and district priorities, or unhelpful relocation of human and financial resources at central, district or community levels. 54 However, regarding enhanced access to HIV/AIDS drugs, it was concluded that pharmaceutical company involvement was more complex and problematic than for tropical diseases. Donation and discount programmes for HIV/AIDS drugs examined in these studies are “embedded in an evolving, multi-faceted global debate (related to intellectual property protection, the need to stimulate innovation for new and better products, competition among R&D-based and generic companies and trade in general) as these issues relate to access to medicines for poor populations” (Caines and Lush 2004:4). Drug donation programmes remain limited in scope and have distributed rather small quantities of essential medicines, compared 50 51 52 53 54 Five global health programmes in which the World Bank is a partner have undergone external evaluations within the past five years (Lele et al. 2004:xii). These were the Special Programmes for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, Global Forum for Health Research, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), RollBack Malaria, and the Stop TB Partnership. Two reasons, in particular, explain this wider assessment. First, business needs to monitor performance so that it can estimate the benefits derived in terms of increased sales, profits, return on investment and/or growth of market share, and the ways in which the partnership outcomes will affect business brand and reputation. For their part, the major funding foundations, governments and the World Bank are each accountable to their respective contributors. See, for example, Buse and Walt (2002); Richter (2003, 2004a); Reich (2002). The tropical diseases for which donated or discounted drugs were made available were leprosy, lymphatic filariasis, malaria, onchocerciasis and sleeping sickness. For recommendations emerging in relation to tropical disease programmes, see Caines and Lush (2004:41). 22
BEYOND PRAGMATISM: APPRAISING UN-BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS PETER UTTING AND ANN ZAMMIT with the need among poor populations. The study concluded that, while individuals in sub- Saharan Africa had clearly benefited, there was very little information on the public health impact of the antiretroviral therapy and none on the specific contributions of PPPs or similar initiatives. Three broad areas of concern emerged from this evaluation of programmes to improve access to HIV/AIDS drugs. First, the fragmentation of initiatives, funding and conditionalities has made the situation at the country level extremely confused. Second, the policy of excluding local private sector providers from most initiatives did not take into account the reality of health service delivery systems in sub-Saharan Africa. Third, there was a lack of understanding of the range of options regarding access to the medicines, a problem that had many dimensions, including the issue of intellectual property rights, trade and public health (Caines and Lush 2004:41). In regard to this: Actions are needed on many fronts to strengthen the capacity of low- and middle-income countries to assess all options regarding access to medicines, including the role and nature of collaborations with sole source suppliers. Current activities of international agencies (WHO/AMDS [AIDS Medicines and Diagnostics Service], WIPO [World Intellectual Property Organization], WTO [World Trade Organization], UNCTAD [United Nations Conference on Trade and Development], World Bank) are insufficient and the health of poor populations is being neglected. International agencies should also review the currently fragmented efforts to collaborate on validating sources and build procurement mechanisms to assist poorer countries. Both pharmaceutical companies and international agencies should take steps to simplify and harmonize the discounts and procedures available to some countries, including information and eligibility for the different schemes they offer and clear information on the conditionalities of different schemes. In particular the position of donations and discounts vis-à-vis registration of generic products needs clarification (Caines and Lush 2004:41–42). Global health partnerships (GHPs) have been assessed from two perspectives by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and McKinsey and Company, first by examining in 2002 the outcomes of the partnerships themselves and then by conducting an assessment of countrylevel perspectives on GHPs (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and McKinsey and Company 2005). The first study found that such partnerships worked in that they “attracted attention and funding to diseases, spurred countries to craft smarter policies that plan for the future, encouraging countries to strengthen program monitoring and accountability, and boosted wider stakeholder participation” (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and McKinsey and Company 2005:1). But the 2005 research in 20 countries found that GHPs imposed considerable burdens on developing countries, as the gains made came at a cost. The introduction of vertically oriented resources into horizontally organized health systems in resource-constrained environments had two serious consequences. First, there were difficulties absorbing GHP resources, because GHPs did not provide adequate technical and other support to implement programmes. Second, countries were burdened with parallel and duplicative processes from multiple GHPs, because GHPs often bypassed the processes that countries already had in place. The assessment also found that GHPs had not adequately or effectively communicated with countries and partners. These findings prompted a number of proposals for remedying the situation that gave countries a greater role in deciding on the optimal timing, pace and scale of new technology and policies, and providing more funding to cover both overhead costs and administrative support for coordinating mechanisms. But the most radical proposal was that, on one hand, GHPs should ask countries to provide one unified multiyear health sector plan and on the other, they should collaborate to address the present cross-cutting constraints and create a single unified mission and a single unified report in each disease area to reduce the burden on country officials. In short, the global health community was asked to collaborate to address these health system issues (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and McKinsey and Company 2005:2). 23
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Page 3 and 4: Contents Acronyms Acknowledgements
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Page 7 and 8: While impact assessment has not bee
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