Market shaping for global health seeks to improve health outcomes by closing gaps between commercial drivers, on the one hand, and societal needs for equitable access to essential health products, on the other. Among other achievements, market shaping efforts have helped reduce the cost of pentavalent, pneumococcal, and rotavirus vaccines by nearly a third over the last decade, boosting immunization rates and saving lives.
An increasingly critical component of access to medicines in low- and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs), market shaping as a field is inherently multifarious, in part because global health markets vary so widely in their complexity, partner ecosystem, and programmatic goals. A uniform approach to shaping such diverse markets is neither realistic nor desirable. Even so, improved understanding among practitioners can help to better organize, connect, and develop the market shaping community of practice. Continued success hinges on the community’s ability to agree on definitions, document best practices, and learn from past mistakes.
Stakeholder engagement, coalition building, and strategic communication
As part of the META initiative, Linksbridge developed a multipronged strategy to strengthen the global health market shaping ecosystem. Our work included close collaboration with tenured market shaping experts and emerging leaders from over 20 organizations—including CHAI, the Gates Foundation, Gavi, the Global Fund, UNICEF, and Unitaid—as we built consensus on effective approaches and key concepts. Our in-house global health experts, with nearly 40 combined years of market shaping experience, made significant contributions as well. Through these efforts, and building off seminal work (such as USAID’s 2014 Market Shaping Primer), our team identified 12 fundamentals for success, enumerated the “Six C’s” of a market shaper’s operating environment, and laid out seven essential steps in designing an effective intervention.
Outcomes
Our Market Dynamics and Strategic Communications teams synthesized these ideas in Foundations of Market Shaping, published in February 2024. This work was unveiled at the inaugural Global Health Market Shaping (GHMS) conference, a Linksbridge-facilitated convening that took place in March 2024 in Barcelona, bringing together nearly 150 people from 70 organizations spanning academia, government, multilaterals, NGOs, community organizations, and philanthropic donors. GHMS established the first practitioner network for market shaping professionals across product categories, and attendees came to the consensus that efficient coordination and collaboration among market shapers will lead to the best results.
Members of the market shaping community can access Foundations of Market Shaping and GHMS highlights at meta.linksbridge.com.
