Public & Private Sector Partnerships

On different occasions, the private and public sector come together in order to achieve an overall benefit for the public. Indeed, public and private partnerships (PPP) are capable of achieving positive social health. In addition, they are also able to gratify the individual organizational aims and objectives of the involved affiliates. Such partnerships permit significant leveraging of the resources of each partner. Moreover, the joint association between both sectors also allows the utilization of each affiliate’s exclusive strengths. This provides an effective platform for achieving positive results in a much shorter time, and simultaneously, delivers the outcomes at a decreased cost together with superior sustainability than labors applied by any sole partner. A formidable example of a PPP is the Central American Handwashing Initiative. The initiative, which is a collective of public and private enterprises, focused on establishing hygienic practices in order to prevent the risk of diarrhea illness among children (Tain & Bendahmane, 2001).

The Central American Handwashing Initiative represents a viable project aimed at ensuring health and wellness for members of the Central American public. The success of the partnership was a result of the incorporation of mobilized resources between different types of affiliates. Between 1996 and 1999, public, donor and private organizations within Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and El Salvador established an agreement that would lead to the inception of the program (Tain & Bendahmane, 2001). Together, projects backed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and four soap organizations devised a promotional campaign based on effective hand washing (Tain & Bendahmane, 2001). In order to cater to the public, the partners engaged in different roles. Private sector firms focused on the provision of soap and other cleansing materials. For instance, Unilever donated 25000 samples of soap in El Salvador. Colgate-Palmolive devised handwashing kits and other school program paraphernalia in Guatemala (Tain & Bendahmane, 2001). The ministries of health, as part of the public sector, also invested in the campaign.

The interplay between public and private sector primarily takes place based on a single objective. Undeniably, the partnership between both sectors is committed towards mitigating social problems that the public may be facing. Most of these social problems typically occur due to the limited amount of resources that the public sector offers. The private sector also plays a role in enhancing such problems since it possesses a rather significant hold on these assets thereby reducing the amount of resources required within a particular community (Stark, 2010). Therefore, in order to restrict the consistency of such issues, both sectors contribute their resources making it possible enough to alleviate the problem at hand. Each affiliate makes a donation within its region of exceptional competence, integrating expertise that is usually unavailable within development projects irrespective of their odd objectives.

Based on the disparity in objectives, private and public sector organizations still become capable of working together. Entities within both segments come together and contribute their resources in order to eliminate a pending public issue or support a particular community action. Nonetheless, it is evident that partners enter into such agreements, not only on the premise of a single objective, but also on the gains they stand to gain as an outcome of their involvement. Simply, partners unite for a generic cause but simultaneously pursue their organizational objectives. Public sector affiliations, such as health or education ministries, attain their aims in a smaller duration, with lesser investments. Alternately, private sector firms, such as producers, are capable of expanding their markets, innovate novel marketing approaches, and avail contributions to the societies in which they base their operations (Maurrasse, 2013).

In conclusion, a public-private partnership (PPP) constitutes a joint relationship between public sector and private sector organizations over a single cause. Firms within these sectors contribute their resources in order to mitigate a communal problem and benefit the overall public. Apart from the need to provide resolution to outstanding public issues, organizations also focus on attaining individual objectives based on the activities they are carrying out. Regardless of such individual interests, public and private sector partnerships are important to any community since they support the common good by benefiting the general society.

References

Maurrasse, D. (2013). Strategic public private partnerships: Innovation and development. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

Stark, A. (2010). Drawing the line: Public and private in America. Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution Press.

Tain, F., & Bendahmane, D. (2001, December). Public-private partnerships: Mobilizing resources to achieve public health goals. Retrieved from http://www.ehproject.org/PDF/Joint_Publications/JP002CAHandPmphltEn.pdf.