Strong, mutually beneficial partnership is the critical element in conducting effective medical outreach and creating lasting impact on local health care capacity. (Americares)
Why Partnership?
Long-term sustainable partnerships between High Income Countries (HICs) and their counterparts in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs) “can help improve access to and quality of care, decrease the disparities in access to surgical care, and strengthen health systems.” Understanding the history, pitfalls and possibilities of global health engagement is critical to developing sustainable and impactful partnerships that bring about justice and health equity.
Solidarity Bridge is a member of the Advocacy for Global Health Partnerships - a coalition of individuals bridging multiple sectors, countries, and disciplines and committed to improving the conduct and outcomes of short-term global health activities. We have endorsed and uphold the following principles as ethical guides for our partnerships:
Mutual partnership with bi-directional input and learning
Empowered host country and community define needs and activities
Sustainable programs and capacity building
Compliance with applicable laws, ethical standards and code of conduct
Humility, cultural sensitivity and respect for all involved
Accountability for actions
Our Ecosystem
Partnership is a core value and organizing principle of Solidarity Bridge, and our sister organization, Puente de Solidaridad (founded in 2005) is our primary partner in Bolivia. Puente de Solidaridad provides the vision and leadership for our shared work, and compassionate medical assistance to Bolivians who can least access care. Today, our Bolivian partners perform the majority of our surgeries, using training, supplies, and equipment provided by Solidarity Bridge.
“Concretely, first, medical missions abroad should be part of the ongoing local dynamisms aimed at implementing and strengthening local healthcare resources. Second, the agenda of health priorities that the health mission will fulfill should be set by the local communities, with their leaders, healthcare practitioners, and institutions. To avoid paternalistic, colonial, and imperialistic approaches, and to foster a collaborative interaction based on equality and mutuality, the local empowerment is indispensable. Third, the health missions should fit harmoniously within a more comprehensive promotion of health. On the one hand, follow-up and continuity should be assured. On the other hand, health is not an isolated good. It depends on many social determinants that positively strengthen health in specific contexts (e.g., education, jobs, social infrastructures—from sanitation to roads—food quality and availability, environmental quality). Fourth, critical evaluation and assessment of each health mission should lead to further planning. The goal is to accompany the local communities, neither replacing them, not even for the very short length of medical missions, nor abandoning them to their own fate after the health mission ended.”
“Bilateral partnership and education should form the cornerstone of global surgery, freeing [Low and Middle Income Countries] from poverty and the reliance on others for basic surgical needs.”
“Global Surgery Pro-Con Debate”, Journal of Surgical Research
Today, the field of "global health" strives to create equitable and just relationships between wealthy and impoverished regions, places and peoples. But it is still a field with markedly unequal power dynamics: racism, classism and many of the residual exploitations of a terrible colonial past.”
Opinion: It's Time To End The Colonial Mindset In Global Health
Further Reading
On Partnership Development
World Health Organization’s Twinning Partnerships for Improvement
On Sustainable Impact
Preferential Option for the Poor Revisited (especially pages 40-42)
On Mutuality
Are you Including or Just Curing?