Public Private partnerships in education and health in the global South: a literature review

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the findings of a literature review on public private partnerships (PPPs) in two sectors – education and health – in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It highlights the heterogeneity of the category within and across sectors and shows that the key predictions of the PPP doctrine – cost-efficiency for improved social service delivery to the poor – are hardly fulfilled in practice. Moreover, PPPs – both as policy model and practical arrangements – are underpinned by a narrow conception of education and health, which denies their broader embeddedness within the economy and society. The paper identifies theoretical and methodological limitations of the existing scholarship. It underlines the scarcity of data on the corporate sector and, more broadly, about the economics of education and health PPPs. It also stresses the little attention paid to the beneficiaries. The paper finally calls for further research to open up the ‘black box’ of PPPs.

KEYWORDS:

• PPP
• education
• health
• literature review
• Africa
• Asia
• Latin America

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and Elaine Unterhalter for providing valuable feedback on earlier versions of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Dr. Sonia Languille conducted this work while she was a postdoctoral associate in the School of Oriental and African Studies (development studies department). Her research interests centre on the political economy of education policy making and financing and the relations between the state and the market in education, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. She has also an extensive professional experience as a development practitioner.

Notes

1. For a critical perspective on the differences between narrative or traditional and so-called ‘systematic’ literature reviews, see for instance Hammersley (2001).

2. For a systematic review on health PPPs focused on Europe see for instance Roehrich, Lewis, and George (2014).

3. See for instance the definition by the World Bank Group at http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/publicprivatepartnerships/overview#1> (accessed 4 March 2016).

4. <https://pppknowledgelab.org/sectors/education> (accessed 4 March 2016).

5. <http://www.globalpartnership.org/private-sector-and-foundations> (30 March 2016).

6. See also Webster, 2015 for a brief critical discussion.

7. <https://oxfamb.logs.org/fp2p/holding-out-for-the-super-voucher-kevin-watkins-responds-to-justin-sandefur-on-private-v-public-education/> (accessed 4 March 2016).

8. <https://pppknowledgelab.org/sectors/education> (accessed 4 March 2016). The ‘PPP Knowledge Lab’ is an initiative cofounded by major aid agencies, including the World Bank and the IFC.

9. For a similar, but less extensive, discussion in education see Draxler, 2012.

10. The role of financialisation in shaping the global education industry is briefly mentioned in Verger, Lubienski, and Steiner-Khamsi (2016).

11. <https://pppknowledgelab.org/sectors/health> (18 April 2016).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Interdisciplinary Seed Fund 2015/16 of the London International Development Centre under the project entitled ‘Public private interactions (PPIs) and social development in Africa, Asia and Latin America’.