Abstract
BackgroundThe past decade has seen an increased number of state-civil society partnerships in the global Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) response of many countries. However, there has been limited research carried out concerning the successes and challenges of these partnerships.MethodsIn-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with 23 participants from 21 different state-civil society partnerships throughout Ghana including all three major geographical zones (Northern, Middle, and Southern zones) to examine the nature of these partnerships and their positive and negative effects in responding to the national HIV/AIDS epidemic.ResultsMajor themes included: 1) commitment by the government and civil society organizations to work cooperatively in order to support the development and implementation of HIV/AIDS interventions in Ghana; 2) the role of civil society organizations in facilitating community mobilization; capacity building; and information, resources and skills exchange to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of these partnerships for HIV prevention and treatment; and 3) significant challenges including funding issues and other structural barriers for these partnerships that need to be addressed moving forward.ConclusionsFuture research should focus on examining the impact of recommended changes on state-civil partnerships and studying the extent and nature of these partnerships in other countries in order to establish the generalizability of the findings from this study.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-016-1598-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
The past decade has seen an increased number of state-civil society partnerships in the global Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) response of many countries
This is striking in developing countries where Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) that include Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs), and CommunityBased Organizations (CBOs) supplement, and in some cases have displaced the traditional role of the Hushie et al BMC Health Services Research (2016) 16:332 state in health care [9,10,11,12,13]
One of the large CSO participants in the Southern zone stated: History and drivers of CSOs’ engagement Evidence gathered from organizational documents and participants in this study revealed that the first major driver for the involvement of CSOs was the establishment of the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) by the Parliamentary Act 613 in 2002 to coordinate the country’s HIV/AIDS response
Summary
The past decade has seen an increased number of state-civil society partnerships in the global Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) response of many countries. These global change processes have tended to alter the balance between state and market to produce a system of organizational arrangements for the delivery of health care services This is striking in developing countries where Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) that include Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs), and CommunityBased Organizations (CBOs) supplement, and in some cases have displaced the traditional role of the Hushie et al BMC Health Services Research (2016) 16:332 state in health care [9,10,11,12,13]. CSOs, likewise, in their quest to expand the scope of their service delivery and advocacy activities, are progressively engaged in actions resulting in strategic alliances with the state in the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic This signals change in the longstanding organizational system supporting the national HIV/AIDS response and in the form and functions of CSOs themselves, as they try to adjust to new roles and models for social services delivery. Understanding the factors associated with successful partnerships is critical globally as countries struggle to fight the global HIV/AIDS pandemic with limited resources
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