Healthcare Policy in Africa : Institutions and Politics from Colonialism to the Present

This comprehensive survey focuses on African healthcare and institutions from the pre-colonial era to the present time.

A comparative study of healthcare policy in Africa, the book explores the impact of historical institutions, multilateral organizations, and informal norms, such as, respectively, colonialism, the World Health Organization, and the Western-inspired biomedical approach to disease on health policy choices, implementation, and results in Africa. In addition, it examines the role of international philanthropy, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Partners In Health, Doctors Without Borders, and the multitude of NGOs that pullulate the African healthcare landscape. The emphasis on these (f)actors, not to mention Cuban medical aid, clearly underscores the “globalization” of healthcare policy in Africa. The case studies of Botswana, Ghana, and Rwanda —three differently endowed countries economically that are also at varying stages of democratic rule— help to shed light on the influence of domestic political institutions and elite agency on healthcare policy processes across the continent.