Brad Ryder, Merck Frosst Industrial Policy Manager, Discusses Public-Private Partnership Strategies and How Businesses Can Be Better Partners
Interview by GBC Executive Director John Tedstrom
Having worked on ACHAP, one of the most comprehensive and innovative public-private partnerships, you’ve seen first hand how businesses can engage in the fight against HIV/AIDS. How do you think engaging in this fight fits in with the broader business strategy of private corporations and why is it important for the private sector to care about AIDS?
I think we’re increasingly understanding that there is a link between the level of economic development and the health of the population. Traditionally, we’ve always thought if you’re rich then you were healthy, but I think more recently we are understanding that the inverse is also true; that the healthier you are the more productive you are and then health leads to wealth as well.
So I think corporations as economic entities in society have an interest in ensuring that the world is healthy so that they can buy their products and provide services. If we can do something to keep people healthy, alive, working, then that helps everybody’s business. In the case of HIV/AIDS, if people are dying, that’s certainly not good for business, it’s not good for business from a marketing perspective and it’s not good from an employee retention perspective. I think the general sense of understanding that health leads to wealth and that businesses can play a role in that fight.
From a smart business perspective it makes sense for businesses to be involved in this because businesses of the future that want to attract top talent will want to be part of movements which are leading to a greater social good. I think people want to work for companies that are not just turning a profit but that are actually making a difference. And whether or not it’s working for a solar power company that’s fighting against global warming or a drug company that’s brining medicines to hard-hit parts of Africa by HIV/AIDS, people want to do that, so businesses will want to engage because they want to attract those people.
The second part of that is, as we are entering this post-modern era of consumers, the consumers are very suspicious of products and claims, so as a consumer you are looking to products that are actually making a difference as well and companies that are making a difference.
Lastly, I think the third part of that is on the investor side as shareholders are increasingly not only looking at their dividends, but they’re also looking at what those companies are doing with their money. So the whole idea of socially invested capital and ethical investing, I think we’re just at the tip of the ice berg in terms of the impact that’s having on shaping the world. From an employee retention focus, from a consumer focus and from an investor focus, it’s really imperative for companies to become engaged in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
What advice would you give to an executive from a company considering a public-private partnership on AIDS, TB or malaria? And conversely, with a government considering partnering with the private sector?
For companies that are considering a public-private partnership on AIDS, TB or malaria, I think that the most important thing is to start with an understanding of where you can contribute and where it makes the most sense for you to make your contribution. Whether I’m giving advice to the private company or to the public side of the public-private partnership, the key to partnerships that work is that they are based on shared objectives and trust.
So really important for partnerships to work is for everyone to play their role and in order for that to happen all the elements of the partnership need to understand, need to be very honest about what their expertise is and where their strengths lie. To look at tackling these challenges and say where are we strong and where can we contribute. So for companies you would advise them to really take stock and understand themselves and what skills they do have and for governments it’s the same thing, so I think that the problems are not going to be solved by either business or governments alone.
Both governments and businesses have strengths and weaknesses when it comes to tackling global health challenges. On the private sector side we see a lot of attention is paid to the ability to move things quickly. The accountability, some of the marketing expertise and some of the technology and technical capacity that exists in the private sector is well documented. But on the government side, governments are more used to long term planning and consultation and thinking through other elements of the problems, so they have advantages as well. Both sides need to asses their strengths and weaknesses and make sure that the partnership is constructed in such a way to maximize the value out of each partner.
You’ve worked with public private partnerships on AIDS issues over the last decade from Geneva to Gaborone. How has the role of public-private partnerships changed during that time and in what capacity will they play a role in the future?
I can remember getting involved in this issue back in 1999 and 2000 when the public sector and the private sector were really at one another’s throat, when there was a real was a high level of animosity between the business groups and the governmental organizations. I think that looking back now, we’ve certainly come a long way.
The idea behind the formation of GBC and other incubators of public-private partnerships, only if we get corporations and governments to work together we could tackle some of these problems… Years ago there was quite a lot of resistance to this idea of public-private partnerships and skepticism as to whether or not it would add value. I think that the jury is now in and the evidence is clear; public private partnerships can play a big role in solving some of these problems.
The question we are now facing is how; how can we perfect them, how can we expand them, how can we replicate them around the world. Now the challenge is to scale them up and expand them and to encourage more companies to do them, because I think the initial question of whether or not they’re a good thing or a bad thing, that’s pretty much solved.
The question is now getting into how to really make then work more effectively. I think it’s encouraging seeing a lot of people who are specializing in public private partnership management, companies increasingly are having staff members who reach out to the non governmental sector or the government sector on corporate responsibility or PPP issues. All of these things have really just expanded only in the last few years, so I think we’re still in the early phases of it, and I’m sure that in the next 10 years we’ll see more public-private partnerships emerge.
Why should the private sector pay attention to the tuberculosis and malaria epidemics in addition to HIV/AIDS? How can companies figure out which affliction they are best suited to fight?
I think it’s true that HIV/AIDS has received probably the lion’s share of public and media attention over the last several years and to a certain extent I think that it is justified because it is such a horrific disease: the fact that it attacks people who are in the prime of their life, attacking people when they are probably more productive from an economic perspective, when they’re just starting a young family; the fact that you’re leaving orphans in the wake, it’s just a devastating disease.
That having been said, increasingly as we try to solve HIV/AIDS, what were actually finding is that in order to be good at solving AIDS, you need to increase healthcare capacity as a whole. And what we’re finding is that public health has been neglected for so many years in so many parts of the world that it really needs to be scaled up and the infrastructure and the capacity needs to be built.
What is also interesting about HIV/AIDS is the exceptionalism of it; it’s not necessarily the poorest parts of the world that is affected by HIV/AIDS, in fact it’s those economies in those countries in transition. If I’m looking in Botswana and the question is why Botswana has such a high HIV prevalence rate, part of it is explainable by the fact that there was such an economic boom and economic prosperity and you do have the growing inequalities that exist as people are making money and having money. Whereas malaria tends to be more endemic in countries with really very basic infrastructure and economic development.
As we’re finding with HIV/AIDS is you just can’t treat one or the other, what’s really required is a boosting of the public health infrastructure in general. Healthcare capacity, whether it’s strategic planning or management or community based care or technical capacity, there’s no shortage of things that need to be done to help governments to be able to take care of the health of their people. They’re all inextricably linked.
Particularly with tuberculosis, many of the people who suffer from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis is an opportunistic infection which strikes a lot of those people. So if you have HIV you’re more susceptible to all sorts of other illnesses. That’s why also it’s central, because it’s an immuno-based disease. I think the lesson now that the world has before it is that we need to take a holistic approach to tackling all of these challenges.
While Merck as a company has shown tremendous leadership on public-private partnerships, within the context of a national response in Botswana, what new opportunities are on the horizon that will allow for further engagement from the private sector?
Where we’ve chosen to invest is primarily in the ACHAP partnership in Botswana, which is a fifty-fifty partnership with the Gates Foundation, which helped the government of Botswana to launch the first anti-retroviral treatment on the African continent and really paved the way not only on the treatment aspect which garners a lot of attention, but also on the prevention side. We’ve really put a lot of focus on Botswana as a model country for the response in Africa.
And I think now as that success has been demonstrated; it was one of the few countries to meet its 3 by 5 targets under the WHO’s 3 by 5 initiative, it’s one of the countries in Africa that has the highest ARV coverage rate. It’s proving that under the right circumstances, ARV treatment is possible in Africa. I think the challenge now is to try to share the lessons learned from that situation with other countries in Africa who are willing to embark on ambitious programs. In order to do that we try as best possible to engage as a corporation with the various multi-stakeholder platforms which are out there; the Global Business Coalition is one, the World Economic Forum is another.
We continue as a pharmaceutical company to research and develop new medicines, unfortunately the HIV vaccine fell short very recently, but we have a number of other products that are proving to be effective, in cervical cancer, in rotavirus, and looking in ways and models that we as a company can learn from the ACHAP experience and see if that can be applied to new vaccines in other parts of the world. GBC and the Global Fund is one vehicle, as the focal point to the Private Sector Delegation to the Global Fund.
I think there’s potential for companies to learn more about the process of ODA – official development assistance, government to government assistance that exists out there, and to see ways in which corporations can develop synergies with that ODA and ways in which they can perhaps enhance it. For some people that means the companies are contributing to the Global Fund, but more than that value, where companies can contribute is partnering on the ground where they have operations – assisting with proposals from different companies, lending technical expertise to the proposals – that type of partnership can provide tremendous value both to the countries that are receiving the assistance and the companies themselves, in terms of building their corporate capacity.
We need to see better synergies between corporate activity and official development assistance. It’s not always possible, but where the development community and the corporate community are working in the same country, you need to increase the opportunity for them to dialogue with one another and seize upon common objectives and common goals. Because ultimately our objectives are the same, our objectives are achieving sustainable development for that country and maybe the techniques may differ, but the objectives are the same and I’d love to see the day where there will be more of an overlap or an interchange between development workers and workers in companies.
Brad Ryder currently works as Industrial Policy Manager at Merck Frosst in Toronto, Canada.
After completing his studies, Ryder worked at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Geneva, where he managed numerous portfolios including researcher for The Global Competitiveness Report, and Manager of the Healthcare Industries sector during the Annual Meeting in Davos and Regional Summits in Beijing and Durban. During his time with the WEF, Ryder was also involved with the creation of the Global Health Initiative – an effort to build public-private partnerships in global health and was later seconded by the WEF to UNAIDS to assist with the coordination of private sector outreach on HIV/AIDS.
In 2002, he moved to Gaborone, Botswana to manage the external relations and communications of the African Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Partnership – a public-private partnership between Merck & Co. and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create a comprehensive model in the fight against HIV/AIDS. During this time, Ryder facilitated the visit of numerous delegations and media outlets interested in learning more about Botswana's response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic and share lessons learned with other countries interested in undertaking similar initiatives. In 2005, Botswana was one of only a few countries to announce that it had met its targets for HIV treatment as set by the World Health Organization’s 3x5 campaign. With approximately 75% of HIV positive people receiving treatment, the country has been lauded by international observers such as Stephen Lewis for "demonstrating to the world what can be done."
Ryder attended the University of Ottawa to study history and political philosophy and completed both a B.A. and M.A. In addition to his studies at the University of Ottawa, he also completed a Certificate in Political Studies at The Institute of Political Studies in Paris (Sciences-Po) and a Masters Degree in International Relations from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, while a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar.
Effective December 10th, 2007 Ryder will begin a new position as Director of Corporate Affairs for the Brazilian mining company Vale Inco, a subsidiary of Vale (formerly known as CVRD) and a GBC member. He plans to continue his work on public-private partnerships there and to help transfer some of the lessons learned from his ACHAP experience in Botswana to other sectors.