http://www.who.int/docstore/bulletin/pdf/2000/issue4/bu0240.pdf

The latter half of the 1990s witnessed a burgeoning number of initiatives involving collaboration between the corporate and public sectors with the purpose of overcoming market and public "failures" of international public health, using global public-private partnerships for health development. One example of such a partnership is provided by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, incorporating a range of public and private interests which have undertaken to share the risks, costs and benefits of research into an effective vaccine against human immonudeficiency virus (HIV). While such partnerships bring major resources into the international public health arena and have the potential to benefit large populations, they also blur the traditional distinctions between the public and private sector's aims and responsibilities.This is the first of two articles in which we explore global public-private partnerships. In part I we review the concept of partnership and delineate what we mean by global public-private partnerships (GPPPs) for health development. We then turn to the context, from which these partnerships are emerging, focusing particularly on changes confronting the United Nations and the corporate community during the 1990s. Part II, which is scheduled to appear in the next issue of the bulletin, discusses a conceptual framework for understanding the different forms of global public-private partnership in the health sector, and explores the implications of GPPPs for the 21st century, looking at issues of governance and equity.