Global Public Health and Innovation in Governance: The Emergence of Public—Private Partnerships

Abstract

The global health landscape is changing, not only in terms of the ways in which globalization affects the spread of diseases (and vice versa) but also in terms of how global health is being governed. The roles of, and relationships between, global organizations (such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank), states in the South and the North, and other key actors (for example, NGOs and businesses) are being reconstructed. One key feature of the global health landscape today is the apparent proliferation of hybrid forms of governance, where actors of various organizational types (states, intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, academia and business) work together. There is a wide range of institutionalized settings in which such cooperation takes place, from small meeting groups to formally organized inclusive institutions (Rittberger et al., 2008, pp. 17–18). These governance forms embody principles of, and use a language of, ‘partnering’, and are often referred to as ‘public-private partnerships’ (PPPs).¹ They can be seen as symbolic of innovation in governance in global health.