NGOs and Health Sector Policy

Abstract

The development of policy is the product of analysis and value judgement, the latter heavily influenced by ideology. Policy should be set in the context of time and place. Blueprints are neither feasible nor desirable. Chapter 3 set out a number of scenarios for the health sector as a backdrop to the discussion of the potential comparative advantage of overall health sector NGOs as individual organizations and as a sub-sector. The chapter concluded that there was no firm evidence that NGOs do have an a priori advantage over the State in any of the four broad functions, though they may be better equipped for certain activities under particular sets of conditions. All the actors involved in the development of national policy — the State, NGOs themselves (both from industrialized countries and from developing countries) and bilateral and multilateral donor agencies — need to ensure that they adopt a policy stance which is firmly grounded in the conditions prevailing in each particular country.