UCSF Report: Second Global Conference on Social Franchising for Health Report, October 22-24, 2014, Cebu, Philippines

On October 22-24, 2014, 167 people representing programs and agencies in 36 countries met
in Cebu, Philippines for the Second Global Conference on Social Franchising for Health. They
convened to advance knowledge in the field of social franchising for health services and
commodities. This report includes rapporteur notes and key insights from the Conference
sessions. This information is organized around the dominant themes of the conference
sessions: performance measurement, quality assurance and quality improvement, linkages
between programs and the public sector, the application of technologies, and health services
financing. This report also includes links to conference presentations, training materials, and
resources to support performance measurement.

The Conference was convened by the Global Health Group at the University of California at
San Francisco. Its content and format were advised by a Steering Committee including
representatives from Abt Associates, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, DKT
International, the Global Health Group at the University of California at San Francisco, the
International Planned Parenthood Federation, Marie Stopes International, Population Services
International, the Results For Development Institute, the Rockefeller Foundation, UK DFID,
USAID, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. 

BACKGROUND
The private healthcare sector is a major provider of health services in low- and middle-income
countries. Social franchising, a business approach to building networks of private healthcare
providers who agree to provide socially beneficial health services and commodities, has
emerged as a useful means to support the private health sector to provide high quality health
services with population-level health impact. There are currently at least 83 franchise programs
operating in 40 countries, and tens of thousands of healthcare professionals belong to the
networks.

Representatives from many of these programs, and the agencies that finance, research and
support them, met in Cebu, Philippines on October 22-24, 2014. The Conference was organized
by the Private Sector Healthcare Initiative (PSHi) of the University of California at San
Francisco’s Global Health Group.

Conference objectives:
• Assemble front-line implementers, donors, and organizations interested in social
  franchising to share insights and lessons learned;
• Impart new knowledge and skills to participants through workshops and trainings;
• Shape the next series of forums and set of work around social franchising; and
• Expand the social franchising community of practice to better engage implementers,
  donors, and policy-makers.

Click here to read the report