Public-private partnerships in urban environmental services have witnessed increased interest in recent years primarily to reform the weak performance of the public sector, reduce cost, improve efficiency, and ensure environmental protection. In this context, successful public-private partnerships require a thorough analysis of opportunities, a deliberate attention to process details, and a con...

OBJECTIVES Efforts to scale-up maternal and child health services in lower and middle income countries will fail if services delivered are not of good quality. Although there is evidence of strategies to increase the quality of health services, less is known about the way these strategies affect health system goals and outcomes. We conducted a systematic review of the literature to examine this...

The extension of the mains to marginal urban areas does indeed require considerable investment and implies supplying disadvantaged population groups whose ability to pay presents significant collection problems (Lyonnaise des Eaux, Lyonnaise des Eaux also suggests the use of order of priority within contracts, in order to prioritise services in the order of most pressing need, as follows (Lyonn...

Achievement of the health-related Millennium Development Goals is dependent on increasing take-up of preventive public health services (PHSs) in developing countries. Poor country governments often lack the resources to provide optimal access to preventive services and a great deal of attention is being directed towards the private sector to fill this void. In many developing countries, the pri...

Healthcare PPPs where clinical services as well as infrastructure are delivered by the private sector are coming under the spotlight as governments seek to achieve value for money in health budgets. Existing examples are being reported as successful, however this article urges caution as a closer look at the evidence shows that handing over control of service delivery to the private sector is d...

Public services can be, and are, delivered according to a variety of different arrangements. The public sector can finance and provide a service itself, or contract with the private sector to participate in provision, or its role may be limited to regulating a private provider. In this paper we examine the features determining the effectiveness of public-service delivery, including incentives f...

The charter-protected right of all Canadians to purchase private medical and hospital services and insurance for medically required services was implied in the 2005 landmark judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) case involving Chaoulli/Zeliotis vs Quebec and Canada. This precedent-setting judgment is now part of Canadian case law and jurisprudence. In this SCC case, two sections of Queb...

Despite six decades of government and private sector programs, CPR in Pakistan is among the lowest in the region. This article reviews published and grey literature to understand why despite sufficient time and usually sufficient funding, CPR remains low in Pakistan. This paper looks beyond the usual factors of quality of services, coverage and supplies and management issues to examine how fami...