Hi,

Crises spawn opportunities. It also depends, for whom.

In today’s edition we do a deep dive and examine the extent of private sector funding among non-state actors in official relations with World Health Organization. This analysis is based on publicly available data.

In a climate of acute financial stress in global health, we are scrutinizing prevailing structures, to try and understand the potential long-term implications on governance of the field. WHO as the apex coordinator of the sector, and its defining role in setting norms, are aspects that will inevitably come under pressure on account of current realities.

We will be exploring some of these questions in the coming months as the architecture of global health gets remade not only because of the current crisis, but also the innate compulsions of actors and stakeholders.

This story has been many weeks, and months in the making. And would not be possible without my colleagues Julia and Bhadra, who carefully analysed and pulled the data together. I am most grateful for their work on this important story. We are also indebted to our sources and many experts who guided our thinking on this.

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More coming!

Best,

Priti

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I. EXCLUSIVE ANALYSIS

Examining Private Sector Support of Non-State Actors in Official Relations With World Health Organization

By Julia Dötzer, Bhadra G. & Priti Patnaik

Non-state actors (NSAs), such as philanthropic foundations, civil society organizations, the private sector and academic actors, have played, and continue to play, an important role in informing the work of the World Health Organization.

The engagement with a diverse range of stakeholders is crucial to ensure a holistic approach to global health. This is not only limited to civil society organizations but also includes entities affiliated with the private sector.

The current budgetary crisis in global health brings into sharp focus, how institutions such as the WHO, will reconcile their funding crunch, while being mindful of their dependence on a potentially increased engagement with private actors. This has, and could have deep implications for WHO’s normative work going forward.

It is essential to understand the manner in which the WHO engages with non-state actors – officially and behind-the-scenes, particularly given the divergent interests among these groups. It could potentially compromise the objectives of the WHO's work, many fear.

We present the first of a series of analyses on the transition in the financing of global health. In the coming months, we intend to examine how actors such as WHO, among others, maneuver the current crisis and implications over its mandate in the medium term.

Why is this important? WHO’s work on setting norms and standards need to be fire walled from even the appearance of conflicts of interest. The question we attempt to examine is while such policies exist to protect its sacrosanct normative role, are these safeguards strong enough even during the greatest disruption in global health financing?

In this story we look at actors in official relations with WHO, specifically the extent to which such actors are tied to the private sector. We found that half of those who disclosed the information, have some form of private sector backing between 30%-100%.

You may say, “so what?”. The first step is to see the evidence. Private sector participation in global health is crucial - but without strings attached. However, we also know that there is no such thing as a free lunch. And hence the current exercise – what would an increase in the role of the private sector in WHO mean for how standards are set, and their eventual impact on people’s lives and health globally. Also, keep in mind that there is more to private sector collaboration going beyond official relations.

Read on.