Real Collaboration: What It Takes for Global Health to Succeed.

AuthorRay, Laura
PositionBook review

MARK L. ROSENBERG, ELISABETH S. HAYES, MARGARET H. MCINTYRE, AND NANCY NEILL California/Milbank Books on Health and the Public; no. 20. Berkeley: University of California Press; New York: Milbank Memorial Fund, c2010.

In Real Collaboration: What It Takes for Global Health to Succeed, Mark L. Rosenberg, Elisabeth S. Hayes, Margaret H. McIntyre, and Nancy Neill provide an empirically based framework for global health partnership efforts. Believing that collaboration is critical for effective resolutions to challenging long-term global health issues, and seeking answers for how global health initiatives could perform better, the authors analyzed global health initiatives to identify common key elements of successful collaboration. The analysis was largely "personal," in that most data came from over 100 interviews and meetings with health, education, government, and business leaders. The result of this research is the "Partnership Pathway"--considerations and suggestions for successfully navigating the evolution of a global health partnership.

The authors begin by positioning their research within the current global health landscape. They argue global health expectations have changed in the wake of increased global resources (eg, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), World Bank spending, communications technologies) as well as the heightened attention to health issues, integration of prevention and treatment efforts, and increased participation of local citizens in health initiatives in developing countries. "The right to have basic health needs met became an expectation, as did the right to have a voice in health services.... With greater resources available and greater participation expected, global health leaders began to have different kinds of discussions about the future. The world had taken a step toward global health equity." (p. 23) These new expectations helped fragment the traditional UN World Health Organization international health architecture, and shift authority to a wide assortment of global and regional agencies, NGOs, bilaterals, philanthropies, and business organizations. Such developments have made effective collaboration more difficult, yet more important than ever.

Rosenberg, Hayes, McIntyre, and Neill initially examined circumstances faced by several partnerships that addressed global diseases and health threats. Based on this examination, they argue disease/threat efforts follow a common evolution of isolated efforts...

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