Stronger Health Advocates Greater Health Impacts: Markets Matter Advocacy Guide

"Increasing political will and building robust policy environments for healthy markets won't happen without a strong network of advocates, influencers, and decision-makers joining forces to address the shortcomings in access to health products." - Amie Batson and Carolyn Reynolds of PATH

Designed primarily for experienced health-issue advocates who are new to thinking about markets, this guide aims to demystify the issue of market strengthening: ensuring that medicines and technologies reach the people who need them. The markets that ensure these products are available can only be as strong as the policy environments in which they operate, which is where advocates come into play. Advocates have the power to raise awareness about the costs and consequences of ineffective policies that affect availability and affordability and allow the distribution and provision of poor-quality products that can be harmful, or even deadly. This guide aims to support their work by offering information and highlighting practical opportunities to identify and strengthen policies that will promote well-functioning markets and ensure greater access to both new and established health products, particularly for those most in need.

The guide, which is a later addition to PATH's Stronger Health Advocates Greater Health Impact series (see Related Summaries, below), contains an overview of market actors and identifies policies and advocacy entry points for civil society. It also provides examples of how advocates have engaged in market issues to bring about change with: national medicine policies, health product regulation, policies affecting provision of health products by private pharmacies and drug shops, public-sector procurement policies, and taxes and duties on essential health products.

Key sections include:

• Markets matter: Background information that explains the fundamentals of markets, why they are so important for health product access, and the characteristics of well-functioning markets. This section also covers the most important actors in a market system and why they matter to advocates.
• Policies and advocacy strategies matter: An overview of five specific policies that impact the market for health products and how advocates can influence these policies to strengthen markets.
• Messages matter: A set of messages that distill the learnings of the guide into accessible and impactful messages that advocates can deploy to support market strengthening efforts.
• Implementation matters: A look ahead at how advocates can pair the guide with existing tools and resources to develop an effective strategy to strengthen market-related policies and support well-functioning markets.

Wherever possible, the guide links the reader to actionable resources. The guide also includes annex materials that provide additional background and tools to support development of specific and actionable advocacy for market strengthening strategies.