By Michael Gwarisa
In a strategic move to ensure long-term sustainability, Population Solutions for Health (PSH) is transforming part of its operations into income-generating ventures, positioning itself as a hybrid social enterprise amid waning international donor support.
The shift comes at a time when global health programs are facing disruptions due to the withdrawal of funding from major donors, particularly the United States government. The cutbacks have forced several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that were heavily reliant on donor aid to shut down or scale back significantly.
To remain operational and continue delivering critical health services, PSH is implementing a two-pronged social enterprise model that leverages both its clinical services and product offerings to generate revenue.
In our case, there are two streams to this approach,” said Dr. Noah Taruberekera, the PSH Managing Director in an interview with HealthTimes on the sidelines of an editors’ sensitisation workshop on reporting child marriages and gender-based violence, hosted by PSH and the Zimbabwe Gender Commission (ZGC).
“The first is evolving our clinics from being fully donor-funded to resilient, sustainable facilities where we can attach a fee to services provided, especially those those services not covered by donor support. These include family planning, cervical cancer screening, and many others under our social enterprise package,” he said.
The second revenue stream stems from PSH’s flagship product, the Protector Plus condom. According to Dr. Taruberekera, the organisation has been refining its condom distribution program over the past three years, with encouraging results.
“At this point, we’re close to recovering all our operating costs for getting that condom into people’s pockets. This means that going forward, we won’t need donor support to sustain this initiative,” he said. “The current model allows us to sell condoms at a cost that generates enough revenue to cover operational expenses.”
Dr. Taruberekera emphasised that the move toward a social enterprise model is a direct response to declining donor funding and the pressing need for financial self-reliance.
“This means we’re generating more revenue from our services and products and reinvesting that income into our programming. That boosts our social impact and complements any additional resources we receive,” he explained.
He stressed that PSH is not transforming into a commercial entity, but rather a mission-driven enterprise.
“We don’t aim to maximise profit like a typical business. Instead, we aim to generate surplus that sustains our work. It’s all about social impact.”
Focusing on condoms, Dr. Taruberekera said PSH’s contribution through social enterprise remains only a fraction of the total national demand, which exceeds 100 million condoms annually.
“What we are doing is part of the solution. It won’t meet the entire demand, but it plays a credible and significant role,” he said. “Our model can contribute about 10% of the national need. The bulk of free condom distribution is still managed through the Ministry of Health.”
