ABSTRACT
While collaboration with the private sector is an important policy to deliver health services throughout the world, the rationale, objectives, processes and implications of this policy are contextual and varied. Poorly performing public health systems and a rapidly burgeoning private sector raise concerns about equity and access to health services for marginal sections of society in most lowincome countries. Therefore governments have been exploring alternatives beyond directly delivering health services on their own. The compulsions of market forces and a growing realization that public and private sectors can potentially gain from one another have facilitated this policy shift.
