Locating health diplomacy through African negotiations on performance‐based funding in global health

This article examines how national health actors in South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia perceive the participatory quality of negotiation processes associated with the performance‐based funding mechanisms of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the World Bank. Through analysis of qualitative fieldwork consisting of 101 interviews within the case countries as well as in Geneva and Washington DC, the research results show that African actors within national governments generally set and negotiate performance targets of performance‐based funding schemes. Nevertheless, the results also show that the quality of those negotiations with external funders were inconsistent, suggesting the existence of asymmetrical power and influence in relation to the quality of those negotiations. This raises questions about the level of power and influence being exerted by external funders and how much leverage African political actors have available to them within global health diplomacy. It also provides evidence that certain key aspects of these negotiated processes are closed off from negotiation for African actors, therefore undermining African participation in significant ways.