Devex: Fully engaging the private sector in health systems development
Ron Ashkin, team leader on the Private Sector Innovation Programme for Health

“…How … do we get the commercial sector to embrace a pro-poor agenda? … The answer to sustainability is not in throwing more money into health care markets, directly intervening to create impact, or capitalizing flavor-of-the-day interventions; it is in discovering and implementing mainstream business models that actually demonstrate economic value to investors while delivering health care to the masses. … Future focus needs to be on developing better business models that meet investor expectations: a shift from trying to convince money to change its behavior and be more ‘social,’ to lower cost delivery models that enable economic viability and attract market capital. Development actors must get beyond corporate social responsibility and social enterprise and look to just plain ‘enterprise’ if we expect to fully engage the private sector and harness the markets to reach [Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3, to ‘ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages’]” (10/10).