Public-private sector partnerships in healthcare system delivery for developmental disorders in sub-Sahara Africa

Abstract

Developmental disorders prevalently caused by infections, perinatal complications, genetic problems, nutritional deficiencies, traumas, amongst others have been on the rise and make children to be at the verge of grave health challenges in the African continent. It has been a norm seeing the government being at the centre or being instrumental to healthcare system delivery with enormous for-profit private partnership and meagre voluntary services. Thus, this study explored the nature and status of government and a network of private stakeholders’ involvement in delivering healthcare to developmental disorders’ domain in selected sub-Sahara African countries. The study adopted participatory governance as a theoretical thrust. A qualitative method was adopted for the study. Hence, semi-structured interviews and desktop research method were adopted for data collection. Purposive sampling was adopted for selection of the 21 participants. The interviews were coded, and themes were generated, and analysed using content analysis. The findings of the study showed that the government remains a main policymaker for the provision of healthcare in African countries and relying mostly on a few profit-oriented stakeholders whose aims mainly focus on general healthcare services without or with less attention to developmental disorders. It is recommended that the government should incorporate a wide network of private stakeholders whose participatory level needs to be raised through adequate awareness, motivation, monitoring and evaluation