ACCESS Health Worldwide (ACCESS-HW) has a team with extensive contacts and experience working with businesses, nonprofit organizations, and public agencies in all parts of the world on a range of development issues, including health. Our experience includes policy and program development, communication, training, monitoring and evaluation, building a network, and facilitating partnerships. See Our Team.
ACCESS-HW is a project of the Public Health Institute (PHI) that generates and promotes research, leadership, and partnerships to advance public health worldwide.
ACCESS-HW was founded on learning from research including a survey in 2004 of businesses on how to increase their support for women’s health services at the local level. We consulted individuals from businesses operating in developing countries, as well as from nonprofit organizations and government agencies with experience involving business. We explored businesses’ experiences related to improving women’s health and learned that they were most likely to do so through partnerships with nonprofits and/or governments. We also found, however, that obstacles to cross-sector partnering still exist in all three sectors: a lack of knowledge, trust, and skills to partner effectively.
Survey respondents offered suggestions for how to address all three obstacles. In 2008, we launched a project in Indonesia with funding from the Ford Foundation to implement their suggestions. As the project evolved, our scope expanded to facilitate partnerships that increase access to health-related resources, especially among women, based on the interests of those involved. See Project History.
