Joint Enterprise of Diverse Actors
Inclusion of all relevant individuals and groups
WHAT IS IT?
As a joint enterprise, SHG is a collective effort of different actors. All actors participate in building up common goals based on a mutual accord, and as a result, all actors commit themselves to this shared enterprise. SHG is not the same as social solidarity or socialism. It does not focus on just one level of analysis (e.g., the international level) or one sector of the society (e.g., the private sector).
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Health governance, by nature, involves a diverse range of different actors. SHG invites, indeed requires, all to participate, as each has its own unique capabilities, and as each is important to the collective project of health. Governments represent legal legitimacy and authority to implement large-scale policies and use the coercive power of the state to ensure compliance when necessary. Private corporate actors contribute goods and services. NGOs and not-for-profit private actors promote the aspects of health in accordance with their defined goals. Individuals' and families' decisions influence their own health functionings, as well as those of their social networks and communities. Promoting the health capability of all requires involving all actors – not an easy task, but a possible one. No matter how diverse actors seem, they share in the joint enterprise of SHG because they share in a universal goal – health capability for all.
WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?
According to the principle of conditioning for cooperation, diverse actors cooperate under the right conditions. In the joint enterprise of SHG, all involved actors work together in the financing, organizing, and delivering of health care, public health, and the social determinants of health. This does not mean that every single step is taken together – that would be too inefficient. Instead, each actor is systematically designated and assumes a role based on their functions and needs, to achieve the shared goals and objectives we put in place. Actors commit themselves to do their respective parts. This joint enterprise will happen both at the domestic and the global level. Far from being in conflict, these two levels of health capability promotion reinforce each other.
HOW DO WE DO IT?
Acknowledging the importance of health to all persons and to society is the first step in a joint enterprise of diverse actors. The first principle - the principle of health capability for all – establishes the value of health and the foundation for this principle. Once all actors understand the moral foundations of SHG (i.e., the universality of health and the importance to individuals and to society of promoting health capability for all), they start situating themselves in the context of the common good. When most, if not all, actors are ready to cooperate, design new health systems and structures are designed so that the joint enterprise is optimally established.