[Non-government organizations and local health systems]

In recent years the failure to meet the health needs of the most unprotected segments of population--those that do not have access to either private or public health care--has spawned the emergence in many of the Region's countries of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that are participating in public health care. This article looks at the role of NGOs in the theoretical health system framework, as well as relationships between the NGOs and other subsectors of the health sector. It reviews the strengths and weaknesses of these organizations and examines the parallelism between their activities and comprehensive development concepts and those inherent in the strategy of implementation of local health systems.