DRC stakeholders put assessment into action
SHOPS Plus recently published a brief that highlights the major findings and recommendations from an assessment of the private health sector in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, USAID, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded the original assessment report, with results disseminated in September 2018 at a ceremony in Kinshasa led by the DRC Minister of Health and the Deputy Prime Minister for Transport and Communications.
The assessment is one of over 30 private sector assessments conducted under the SHOPS Plus and SHOPS projects. By providing key data on the size, scope, and activities of the private sector, private sector assessments help local stakeholders and development partners devise strategies, make decisions, and design programs that will maximize private sector contributions to health.
The DRC assessment team worked so closely with the Ministry of Health from assessment design to report dissemination that the Ministry is already implementing some of its recommendations. For example, in May 2018, a new decree established a cabinet-level public-private partnership unit within the Ministry of Health to react quickly to large partnership opportunities such as a recent opportunity with a pharmaceutical company for local manufacturing of health products. Acting upon another recommendation, the Ministry of Health and the national private sector health alliance recently signed a partnership agreement to guide future public private engagement in the country. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, following one of the recommendations, are conducting an 18-month research study to identify and test mechanisms that could reduce financial barriers to family planning use for adolescent and low-income market segments thereby expanding market heterogeneity.
Read a summary of the DRC assessment findings and recommendations.
Read the original assessment report published in late 2018.
Visit Assessment to Action: A Guide for Conducting Private Health Sector Assessments.
Read about SHOPS Plus private sector assessments in other countries.
Learn more about our work in public-private engagement.