Global health leaders, corporations push public-private partnerships

Katie Taylor, an administrator in USAID’s global health bureau, is optimistic when she envisions the year 2020.

“I think we will have halved newborn deaths, we will have virtually eliminated pneumonia and diarrhea, and we will have made significant ongoing progress on malaria,” Taylor said Monday at a forum organized by the nonprofit PYXERA Global, livestreamed from the Newseum in Washington, DC. “We can only do that if we do it together — it’s the alignment between public and private,” she said.

It was a common refrain at the first Public-Private Partnership Forum, which brought together leaders from government agencies and major corporations for a series of conversations. Part of PYXERA Global’s fifth annual conference on corporate volunteerism, the event explored the potential of public-private partnerships for development and why they work — or fail.

Partnerships with companies, foundations and other groups have helped USAID expand its impact in global health, Taylor said. For example, in just three years, the agency’s Helping Babies Breathe initiative — a collaboration with Johnson & Johnson, Norwegian medical device maker Laerdal and others — has trained more than 130,000 health workers in 60 countries in newborn resuscitation.

Taylor said that the agency could make similar progress expanding simple yet effective solutions — such as breastfeeding and anti-diarrhea treatment — with the help of corporate partners.

“One of the things the private sector does brilliantly is taking knowledge to scale. You call it a market; we call it saving lives,” she said.

Companies can also help governments and nonprofit groups identify a “bottom line” and can provide established supply chains, said Tom Hart, US Executive Director of the ONE Campaign, an advocacy group that works to combat poverty and disease.

“If you can get a fizzy drink to any sub-Saharan African village, surely you can get a vaccine there,” Hart said.

While partnerships have already helped advance the fight against HIV/AIDS and malaria, Hart says companies should continue to scale up funding for proven interventions and follow action with advocacy.

“The gap is complacency,” he said. “These aren’t matters of if we know how to beat these diseases; it’s a matter of whether we want to.”

Taylor said that she hopes companies beyond the medical sector, and especially local businesses and civil society, will engage more actively in global health partnerships.

“There’s so much that every single business out there can do. If you have an employee somewhere, you have an export office, you have a way of connecting with citizens and governments where need is high — then there’s something that can be done,” she said.

Public-private partnerships have surged in popularity among aid agencies and corporations, as private capital flows increasingly dwarf foreign aid. Yet the term is sometimes used loosely.

“My frank observation is that the bulk of what are lauded as ‘partnerships’ by these entities would not fit my definition,” says Deirdre White, who heads PYXERA Global. “It’s not about one side writing a check, and the other implementing as they see fit,” White says, but rather “a relationship that drives mutual benefit.”

White said she launched the forum to inspire more authentic partnerships and highlight lessons learned.

At the event, executives from The Dow Chemical Company, IBM, JPMorgan Chase and other corporations noted that partnerships can benefit companies by opening markets, cultivating and attracting talent and sustaining the future of the business.

Partnerships work best when companies are willing to fail, bring valued skills and are sensitive to local conditions, said Bo Miller, Dow's Global Director for Corporate Citizenship.

“Be humble and authentic. In these emerging geographies, you’re going to places where you need to understand the culture, the conditions, the history, the values,” he said.

For partnerships to be effective, companies should view them as long-term investments and integrate them into core business strategies, said Congressman Jim Moran (D-Virginia).

Amini Kajunju, president of The Africa-America Institute, urged companies to cultivate local relationships, including with governments, to build capacity and sustain progress. She also observed that healthy partnerships may require an attitude shift.

“There are many Americans who still see Africa as a scary place. As a place of ‘three D’s’: death, despair, disease. Americans have to really see the continent as a place for partnership and investment. Many Africans are hungry for jobs and technologies. To the extent that Americans can bring that, there will be so many opportunities for both places.”

The greatest resistance to expanding partnerships has come not from corporations, but from governments and civil society, White said.

“There is still a huge level of discomfort from the idea that business may profit from doing good,” she said. “It’s okay to have parallel goals, as long as they’re not exclusive.”

More from GlobalPost: For companies, investing in women can mean better health, education — and business