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Initiating Public/Private Partnerships to Finance Reproductive Health: The Role of Market Segmentation Analysis

Participants at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) developed an ambitious agenda, calling for more and better quality reproductive health products and services around the world. This mandate, along with the increased global demand for reproductive health care, poses a financial challenge to both donors and local governments.Recognizing this, the ICPD Programme of Action stressed the need for more efficient resource use through stronger public/private partnerships and an expanded private sector role. Carrying out these recommendations requires improved public/private dialogue and further exploration of opportunities for the public and private sectors to coordinate their efforts. Market segmentation analysis can support this process by highlighting the different reproductive health needs of different population groups and prospects for both sectors to improve resource targeting accordingly. The purpose of this paper is to familiarize policymakers with market segmentation analysis and its role in supporting more efficient and effective resource use. Specifically, the paper summarizes how market segmentation analysis helped initiate public/private dialogue to guide resource allocation decisions in four countries: Turkey, India, Morocco, and Brazil. In Morocco and Turkey, market segmentation analysis results were central to public/private reproductive health finance discussions and guided public sector decisions to concentrate resources more heavily on the most vulnerable and needy population groups. In Brazil and India, market segmentation analysis findings helped guide reproductive health finance discussions between donors and the private sector that led ultimately to private sector expansion.