Health reform requires policy capacity
Pierre-Gerlier Forest
1
*
, Jean-Louis Denis
2
, Lawrence D. Brown
3
, David Helms
4
Abstract
Among the many reasons that may limit the adoption of promising reform ideas, policy capacity is the least recognized.
The concept itself is not widely understood. Although policy capacity is concerned with the gathering of information and
the formulation of options for public action in the initial phases of policy consultation and development, it also touches
on all stages of the policy process, from the strategic identification of a problem to the actual development of the policy,
its formal adoption, its implementation, and even further, its evaluation and continuation or modification. Expertise in
the form of policy advice is already widely available in and to public administrations, to well-established professional
organizations like medical societies and, of course, to large private-sector organizations with commercial or financial
interests in the health sector. We need more health actors to join the fray and move from their traditional position of
advocacy to a fuller commitment to the development of policy capacity, with all that it entails in terms of leadership and
social responsibilit