Unlocking community capability: key to more responsive, resilient and equitable health systems

Abstract

Communities are more than a geographic location; they are a site of struggle and also a dynamic engine of change. Unlocking their capabilities to strengthen health systems requires understanding and adapting to local context, engaging a diversity of actors and working with the productive tensions inherent to collective action.

In Future Health Systems (FHS), we focused on communities as active service delivery participants across a wide variety of contexts. In this brief, we draw from a systematic review (George et al, 2015) and country case studies to reflect on the process of unlocking community capabilities, the key actors involved, and the productive tensions within community partnerships forged to build more responsive, resilient and equitable health systems.