Between 29th and 31st May 2018, the Open Society Initiative for East Africa (OSIEA) and the Open Society Foundations (OSF) through their Public Health Program brought together pertinent stakeholders in health and governance within the Civil Society space. The meeting aimed to explore and trace the impact of marketisation and financialisation in the health sector, and establish strategies of response. KELIN’s participation was premised on our work on governance and health, and was represented at this meeting by Allan Maleche and Linda Kroeger.
Increasingly, policy and resource decisions in the health sector are being influenced by a wide variety of interests some of which are not concerned or driven by public good. Top on these varying interests are the economic dynamics of marketisation and financialisation in the Health Industry. This has and is quickly leading to the commoditisation of health services and products and consequently the ordinary citizen in most African and developing countries, is in danger of having their right to the highest attainable standard of health not realised or upheld.
The convening identified the economic actors in global health financing in a bid to establish the benefits that result from their financing, who benefits from them and what is the resulting impact on health rights. Participants also unpackaged the role of the Global Financing Facility in a bid to understand its workings and impact on health sectors in Africa. Subsequently, the convening identified private solutions that could work for public health issues however, the involvement of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) and Privatisation in the health industry should be regulated and guided by a rights based approach in order to protect and promote public good.
Various strategies that could be adopted by non-state actors were identified. As a first step KELIN was tasked to convene the Kenyan Chapter of the actors involved in health governance. This will be an avenue to further add to the work KELIN is already undertaking with regard to health governance and the protection of health related rights.
To contribute to the discussion and for live updates follow KELIN on our social media platforms using the hash tag #Governance4HealthEA
Twitter: @KELINkenya
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/kelinkenya
For more information contact:
Linda W. Kroeger
Programme Officer, Sexual Reproductive Health Rights
Mombasa Road, Somak building 4th Floor
P O Box 112 – 00200 KNH Nairobi,
Tel: 020 2515790 │Mobile: 0711 456990
E-mail: lwanjiru@kelinkenya.org
Website: www.kelinkenya.org
