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Understanding global health and development partnerships: Perspectives from African and global health system professionals

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  • Barnes, Amy
  • Brown, Garrett W.
  • Harman, Sophie

Abstract

Partnership is a key idea in current debates about global health and development assistance, yet little is known about what partnership means to those who are responsible for operationalising it or how it is experienced in practice. This is particularly the case in the context of African health systems. This paper explores how health professionals working in global health hubs and the health systems of South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia understand and experience partnership. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 101 professionals based in each country, Washington DC and Geneva between October 2012 and June 2013, the paper makes four key arguments. First, partnership has a legitimating function in global health policy processes for international development institutions, government agencies and civil society organisations alike. Second, the practice of partnership generates idiosyncratic and complicated relationships that health professionals have to manage and navigate, often informally. Third, partnership is shaped by historical legacies, critical events, and independent consultants. Fourth, despite being an accepted part of global health policy, there is little shared understanding of what good partnership is meant to include or resemble in practice. Knowing more about the specific socio-cultural and political dynamics of partnership in different health system contexts is critical to equip health professionals with the skills to build the informal relations that are essential to effective partnership engagement.

Suggested Citation

  • Barnes, Amy & Brown, Garrett W. & Harman, Sophie, 2016. "Understanding global health and development partnerships: Perspectives from African and global health system professionals," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 22-29.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:159:y:2016:i:c:p:22-29
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.04.033
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Aveling, Emma-Louise & Martin, Graham, 2013. "Realising the transformative potential of healthcare partnerships: Insights from divergent literatures and contrasting cases in high- and low-income country contexts," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 74-82.
    2. Amy Barnes & Garrett Brown, 2011. "The Idea of Partnership within the Millennium Development Goals: context, instrumentality and the normative demands of partnership," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(1), pages 165-180.
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    6. Sophie Harman, 2015. "15 years of 'War on AIDS': what impact has the global HIV/AIDS response had on the political economy of Africa?," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(145), pages 467-476, September.
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