The rise of private global health actors sparks calls for accountability

Powerful private actors are facing increased scrutiny for the role they play in determining health outcomes. But what, exactly, is a PPA?

They include the range of private foundations, financial institutions, and corporations that are increasingly shaping health outcomes for people around the world. And as they come into focus, so does a growing effort to hold them accountable when they undermine people’s health.

The United Nations University’s International Institute for Global Health and the Third World Network, a nonprofit focused on protecting the interests of people in the global south, organized a symposium this week in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to begin cataloguing those actors and any harms that they do. On the agenda was everything from corporations that promote unhealthy foods or tobacco use to ongoing efforts to privatize domestic health systems and then incentivize profit-making interventions, such as unnecessary surgeries, at the expense of a patient’s health.