Somalia has some of the world’s poorest health indicators. Overall, the healthcare system in Somalia remains weak, poorly resourced, and inequitably distributed. Health expenditure remains extremely low with especially severe risk of financial burden on the poor. Somalia’s healthcare market is heavily distorted; for decades, healthcare has primarily been financed through direct funding from external donors, completed with out-of-pocket expenditures by the populace. Nearly half of total health expenditure in Somalia comes from donors, and most public health services provided in country have been provided free of charge by donors through implementing NGOs and UN agencies. This system based on external dependency is fragile and unsustainable.
Meanwhile, Somalia’s private healthcare sector is thriving, with a 60% share of total health expenditure, although it is fragmented, underregulated, and concentrated in urban areas. PSPH seeks to harness the power of the private sector to strengthen the overall healthcare system and improve access to quality and affordable healthcare for all Somalis, including disadvantaged groups.
PSPH follows a Market Systems Development (MSD) approach, an adaptive, facilitative approach that emphasizes sustainability, system building, and scale. It focuses on two healthcare sub-systems, healthcare finance and healthcare service delivery. PSPH is the only program in Somalia’s health sector that works with the private sector out of 85 donor-funded health programs reported to the UN FTS in 2023. It is recognized as the only dedicated MSD project in the healthcare sector anywhere in the world. PSPH offers only technical assistance and does not provide direct funding to partners.
Working through offices in Mogadishu, Somalia and Hargeisa, Somaliland, PSPH’s highly trained and capable field teams provide technical support to private sector firms that share mutual objectives and invest their own funds in innovative healthcare financing mechanisms and service delivery networks.
