Strong partnerships are behind everything we do at Pathfinder—our work with government to strengthen health systems, with local partners to deliver essential services, with civil society to advocate for change, and with community leaders to build a brighter future.
The challenges facing our world today are complex, requiring new and innovative multi-sectoral solutions. To address these complexities, we’re expanding our private-sector partnerships. By combining Pathfinder’s decades of expertise in global health and development with the resources, innovation, and reach of businesses, we can build a healthier, more equitable world.
Private-sector partnerships are essential to sustainable development and delivering lasting change. Together, we can develop sustainable, locally relevant solutions. From new technologies to improving access to care, our collaborations are driving progress in communities around the world.
Read about the role of the private sector in some of our current projects.
Improving the work environment for women in Egypt
In Egypt, only 18% of working-age women participate in the economy. Pathfinder’s USAID-funded Women’s Economic and Social Empowerment Program is working to build more gender-equitable work environments at companies by incentivizing them to hire and retain women; fight workplace inequality; and implement environmental, social, and corporate governance under the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles. These initiatives will increase companies’ profitability, improve customer experience, enhance diversity in the workplace, and create a new generation of women to play leadership roles in Egypt’s private sector.
The program assists companies with pursuing the Egyptian Gender Equity Seal, a certification awarded by Egypt’s National Council for Women to companies that demonstrate a commitment to improving their gender equality performance. By reviewing policies and procedures, assessing gender equality performance, and supporting gender action plans, the program helps companies qualify for certification. At the same time, the program offers companies gender-equitable recruitment solutions that leverage the untapped talent of women, using a demand-driven employability strategy that bridges the gap in companies’ employment needs.
The program has trained 16 auditors that will continue to work with companies to ensure they sustain Gender Equity Seal certification beyond the life of the program.
Increasing access to safe, legal abortion in Tanzania
Mifepristone is an essential medicine for safe abortion care and maternal health. Due to perceived controversy related to the medicine, however, it had not formally been registered in the country until recently. Pathfinder identified a private-sector medical supplies importer, provided seed funds to support registration, and through effective advocacy, Mifepristone is now a registered drug in Tanzania. The private sector can now import Mifepristone and sell it to public and private hospitals through private-sector networks, as Pathfinder and partners continue to advocate for its inclusion in Tanzania’s national treatment guidelines and essential drug list, and ultimately, in the public health supply chain.
Our partnership with the private sector in Tanzania is critical to sustained availability of Mifepristone—a lifesaving drug for safe abortion and maternal health care.
Encouraging healthy fertility among young couples in India
Pathfinder has partnered with Indira IVF, the largest IVF clinic chain in India, to develop the Swasthneev (healthy foundation) program. This social impact program, which is part of Indira IVF’s corporate social responsibility portfolio, repositions infertility in India from a taboo topic to one that is discussed openly. The program works with young couples in six cities to adopt healthy fertility practices early in their marriages. This includes encouraging healthy lifestyle changes and better nutrition, reducing stress, and working to eliminate substance abuse.
The project improves couples’ communication and gender equity in relationships and across communities, and dispels myths and misconceptions related to fertility health. To engage couples and communities, Pathfinder uses a diversity of digital and interactive approaches including social media campaigns, thematic films, games and quizzes, and other activations hosted through a mobile van that deploys to different communities. The project will engage a cohort of community champions to sustain activities beyond the project’s lifetime.
Our partnership with Indira IVF is reaching over 15 million people through digital campaigns and 150,000 people through other marketing strategies.
Connecting young Pakistanis to healthcare through a digital marketplace
Pathfinder is a partner on the USAID-funded Frontier Health Markets (FHM) Engage project, which focuses on strengthening local health market systems by meaningfully engaging the private sector. The project aims to make health markets responsive, equitable, resilient, and driven by consumer needs. Pakistan’s healthcare system faces significant challenges, particularly in providing safe and non-judgmental contraceptive and reproductive health services to young people.
To address these challenges, FHM Engage conducted a comprehensive market analysis to identify key players, market needs, and constraints. This analysis informed a targeted approach that involved local partners in developing context-specific solutions and established a youth council to ensure that outcomes were “for the youth, by the youth.” The result is “BOLO Health,” a digital health marketplace developed in partnership with Oladoc, a digital aggregator in the health system. BOLO Health delivers tailored health services, information, and products online, empowering young individuals with reliable, authentic resources and support to make informed decisions about their health.
Through our partnership with Oladoc, BOLO Health intends to reach 3 million youth and conduct 15,000 consultations in the first three months.
Putting women’s leadership at the center of climate action
Takeda Pharmaceuticals supports Pathfinder to lead a program in Bangladesh and Pakistan that engages women and their communities, local nongovernmental organizations, and government ministries to enhance resilience to climate change. This includes preparing health systems to serve through natural disasters, engaging women in livelihoods and agricultural activities that can withstand extreme flooding and droughts, and increasing people’s awareness about the linkages between climate change and health. There is a particular focus on meeting the reproductive health needs of women and girls in climate-vulnerable communities. In the final stretch of the program, we are focused on sustainability and scale of our activities in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and beyond.
Our partnership with Takeda Pharmaceuticals in Bangladesh is assisting more than 500 health facilities with developing and activating disaster preparedness plans, and in Pakistan, has engaged almost 1,000 women as climate champions.
Increasing access to contraception in Uganda through drug shops
Pathfinder’s USAID Uganda Family Planning Activity (FPA), using a total market approach, linked drug shops that provide short-acting contraceptive methods with public health facilities across three districts in Uganda. Drug shops have proximity to communities and are a viable channel to reach underserved communities. FPA trained 49 drug shops operators on counseling and provision of injectable contraceptives, referral for long acting and permanent methods, commodity security, infection prevention, waste management, record-keep and reporting in ministry of health registers. This initiative has demonstrated that communities are willing to pay for services if they are available, affordable, and good quality.
Connecting drug shops with nearby health facilities strengthened the public-private partnership between the drug shops and district health departments, allowing improved stewardship of sustainable and quality contraceptive delivery.
