Trends and opportunities in public-private partnerships to improve health service delivery in Africa

This report argues that the private sector is for the rich and the public sector is for the poor. It demonstrates that the poorer segments of the population do use the private sector extensively, and the public sector does substantially subsidize richer people who use its services. The paper also discuses that health is mainly financed by the public sector and the public sector finances less than half of total health expenditures, and the rest is being financed from out-of-pocket, which goes primarily to buying services from the private sector. In most African countries, the private sector plays a more significant role than government, especially when compared to OECD countries where public financing provides the majority of resources. It considers that the private sector is not very developed in most African countries, that in fact, in most countries the private sector provides a third or more of all health services.