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The impact of withdrawal of international non-governmental organisations from public health facilities: A case study of Tsholotsho district, Matabeleland North Province, Zimbabwe

International non-governmental organisations (INGOs) play a critical role in improving the capacity of health systems to deliver services in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), especially in fragile and conflict affected states (FCAS). Nonetheless, the sustainability of public private engagement (PPE) initiat...

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Main Author: Hamisi, Rashid
Other Authors: Olivier, Jill
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Public Health and Family Medicine 2022
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access_status_str Open Access
author Hamisi, Rashid
author2 Olivier, Jill
author_browse Hamisi, Rashid
Olivier, Jill
author_facet Olivier, Jill
Hamisi, Rashid
author_sort Hamisi, Rashid
collection Thesis
description International non-governmental organisations (INGOs) play a critical role in improving the capacity of health systems to deliver services in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), especially in fragile and conflict affected states (FCAS). Nonetheless, the sustainability of public private engagement (PPE) initiatives between health systems and INGOs is threatened by various factors including, decline in developmental and humanitarian assistance and a shift in policies and priorities. Consequently, many INGOs are exiting PPE initiatives. There is a lack of evidence about the process of withdrawal of INGOs from low- and middle-income countries and FCAS settings, in particular, how the nature of the withdrawal (beyond the basic loss of funds) affects the functioning of the health system, especially at lower levels of primary care. This mini dissertation presents a research protocol (Section A), and a journal formatted manuscript (Section B) for a case study of the impact of withdrawal of INGOs from public health facilities in Tsholotsho district, Matabeleland North Province, Zimbabwe. This study describes the process of withdrawal by three INGOs from PPE initiatives with Tsholotsho District Hospital (TDH). Understanding this process better and learning how public health facilities cope with the withdrawal of partner support, provides lessons on how to efficiently sustain the gains from PPE initiatives. In these three cases, PPEs were ended because of an ending of funds. Despite the existence of exit and sustainability plans, in all cases, the withdrawal process was fraught and difficult to navigate. There was a discrepancy between plans and what transpired during and after funding-withdrawal. The common issues that affected exit implementation included abruptness of the withdrawal by INGOs; lack of resources to sustain the intervention after withdrawal of funding; and design, depth and scope of intervention. In addition, lack of clear regulatory mechanisms that shape PPE initiatives and govern the withdrawal of partners from public facilities also affected the process. Due to these factors, the interventions either stopped or continued at a drastically reduced scale. Withdrawal of partners, especially in FCAS, has dire implications for the health system, and need to be managed with much greater attention given to (unintended) consequences to the health system and its resilience. Health system assessments and analytics should be performed by expert independent parties prior to the ending of PPEs, which would enable context-specific withdrawal plans that might aid in mitigating future difficulties.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
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license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2022
publishDateRange 2022
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spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/35826 The impact of withdrawal of international non-governmental organisations from public health facilities: A case study of Tsholotsho district, Matabeleland North Province, Zimbabwe Hamisi, Rashid Olivier, Jill Health Systems International non-governmental organisations (INGOs) play a critical role in improving the capacity of health systems to deliver services in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), especially in fragile and conflict affected states (FCAS). Nonetheless, the sustainability of public private engagement (PPE) initiatives between health systems and INGOs is threatened by various factors including, decline in developmental and humanitarian assistance and a shift in policies and priorities. Consequently, many INGOs are exiting PPE initiatives. There is a lack of evidence about the process of withdrawal of INGOs from low- and middle-income countries and FCAS settings, in particular, how the nature of the withdrawal (beyond the basic loss of funds) affects the functioning of the health system, especially at lower levels of primary care. This mini dissertation presents a research protocol (Section A), and a journal formatted manuscript (Section B) for a case study of the impact of withdrawal of INGOs from public health facilities in Tsholotsho district, Matabeleland North Province, Zimbabwe. This study describes the process of withdrawal by three INGOs from PPE initiatives with Tsholotsho District Hospital (TDH). Understanding this process better and learning how public health facilities cope with the withdrawal of partner support, provides lessons on how to efficiently sustain the gains from PPE initiatives. In these three cases, PPEs were ended because of an ending of funds. Despite the existence of exit and sustainability plans, in all cases, the withdrawal process was fraught and difficult to navigate. There was a discrepancy between plans and what transpired during and after funding-withdrawal. The common issues that affected exit implementation included abruptness of the withdrawal by INGOs; lack of resources to sustain the intervention after withdrawal of funding; and design, depth and scope of intervention. In addition, lack of clear regulatory mechanisms that shape PPE initiatives and govern the withdrawal of partners from public facilities also affected the process. Due to these factors, the interventions either stopped or continued at a drastically reduced scale. Withdrawal of partners, especially in FCAS, has dire implications for the health system, and need to be managed with much greater attention given to (unintended) consequences to the health system and its resilience. Health system assessments and analytics should be performed by expert independent parties prior to the ending of PPEs, which would enable context-specific withdrawal plans that might aid in mitigating future difficulties. 2022-02-22T08:42:20Z 2022-02-22T08:42:20Z 2021 2022-02-16T05:38:38Z Master Thesis Masters MPH http://hdl.handle.net/11427/35826 eng application/pdf Department of Public Health and Family Medicine Faculty of Health Sciences
spellingShingle Health Systems
Hamisi, Rashid
The impact of withdrawal of international non-governmental organisations from public health facilities: A case study of Tsholotsho district, Matabeleland North Province, Zimbabwe
thesis_degree_str Master's
title The impact of withdrawal of international non-governmental organisations from public health facilities: A case study of Tsholotsho district, Matabeleland North Province, Zimbabwe
title_full The impact of withdrawal of international non-governmental organisations from public health facilities: A case study of Tsholotsho district, Matabeleland North Province, Zimbabwe
title_fullStr The impact of withdrawal of international non-governmental organisations from public health facilities: A case study of Tsholotsho district, Matabeleland North Province, Zimbabwe
title_full_unstemmed The impact of withdrawal of international non-governmental organisations from public health facilities: A case study of Tsholotsho district, Matabeleland North Province, Zimbabwe
title_short The impact of withdrawal of international non-governmental organisations from public health facilities: A case study of Tsholotsho district, Matabeleland North Province, Zimbabwe
title_sort impact of withdrawal of international non governmental organisations from public health facilities a case study of tsholotsho district matabeleland north province zimbabwe
topic Health Systems
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/35826
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