The strategic goal of the Primary Health Care (PHC) portfolio at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is to support countries in achieving better health outcomes through improved primary health care. Primary Health Care is understood as a system that encompasses the six essential building blocks required for delivering essential health services: financing, human resources for health, data, supplies, facilities, and demand.
The foundation demonstrates a strong commitment to gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) and, as such, engaged Kore Global as a thought partner to co-design and pilot a GESI integration approach for the PHC strategy.
Over a 12-month period, we worked alongside the foundation’s PHC and Gender Equality team to:
- Co-develop a bespoke GESI conceptual framework for the PHC strategy,
- Conduct GESI scans in Indonesia, Pakistan, and Nigeria to explore the barriers, opportunities, and risks for advancing GESI work across the foundation’s PHC objectives in each region,
- Co-design country-specific GESI roadmaps for the PHC team’s investments in each location, and
- Provide ongoing GESI technical assistance to the foundation and its grantees during implementation.
Insights from this pilot process were used to refine the approach and lay the foundation for the PHC team’s GESI integration work going forward. We continue to provide technical support to the PHC Seattle-based team and their grantees to integrate GESI meaningfully into their investments and have been producing knowledge products and learning sessions to continue to socialize and build on the approach we have co-developed to integrate gender into the Foundation’s PHC Strategy.
