Governments are known more for red tape than innovation, but public-private partnerships can ensure that creative business solutions are applied to service delivery.
Bad roads are no longer an obstacle for Rwandan healthworkers who need blood for emergency procedures. Instead, they now rely on the sky as 60% of Rwandan hospitals’ blood deliveries are being done by drones.
This is an example of what is possible when governments partner with the private sector to address service delivery problems, explained Adam Randolph, the Managing Director of Abbott Laboratories in Africa. Last year, Abbott Laboratories was contracted by the Rwandan government to operate and manage all the country’s laboratories as part of a public-private partnership.
This follows a successful 10-year partnership that the company and its social investment arm, the Abbott Trust, has had with the government of Tanzania to improve health facilities. One of the biggest undertakings of this partnership was to improve the country’s 23 regional laboratories over three years with a large injection of cash from the Abbott Fund. ….more
