Innovative Procurement for Health and Industrial Development

Abstract

Part II of this book has demonstrated that building synergies between health systems and industrial development is a complex process of reshaping the politics and political economy of the two systems. A key tool for building and sustaining health-industry relationships, as Smita Srinivas observes above and as some Part I chapters also emphasized, is procurement. Yet procurement remains under-researched and over-simplified as a technical, linear, ordering and delivery process (see Chapter 8), rather than an exercise in deepening and strengthening the domestic economy through market and non-market relationships building.

Keywords

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Procurement is then an integral part of health policy. However, it is of course also a part of industrial policy. This is because the way in which purchasing decisions are structured and regulated impact profoundly on the way in which production happens. Thus, consideration of the pros and cons associated with procurement regimes needs to be in terms, not only of whether immediate health policy priorities are achieved, but also in light of longer term sustainability of supply of innovative health products. Thus, price, value and innovation are closely interwoven. (Srinivas, 2012: 126)