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The Emerging Role of the Private Sector in Delivering Social Services in the ESCAP Region
Social Policy Paper No. 4, 2001
ST/ESCAP/2166

This paper elaborates on the current approaches in viewing the private sector as either a partner or a separate entity in delivering such basic services as education, healthcare, water and sanitation. It highlights the changing role of the different stakeholders, with special focus on the for-profit private sector in delivering social services and how public sector participation can be supplementary to that emerging role in the years after the Copenhagen Declaration. As the role of the private sector is linked to the stages of development of a specific country (and therefore of its own private sector), the paper examines the feasibility of involving the private sector in the delivery of social services, including employment creation for the poor. The paper concludes by providing some policy options to develop effective national policies and suggests a regional framework for further cooperation in promoting the role of the private sector in delivering social services.