Omobowale et al. BMC International Health and Human Rights 2010, 10:19 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-698X/10/19 Open Access DEBATE © 2010 Omobowale et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Com- mons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduc- tion in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Debate Addressing conflicts of interest in Public Private Partnerships Emmanuel B Omobowale, Michael Kuziw, Melinda Treurnicht Naylor, Abdallah S Daar and Peter A Singer* Abstract Background: Many articles have been written on conflicts of interests (COIs) in fields such as medicine, business, politics, public service and education. With the growing abundance of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), often involving complex relationships among the partners, it is important to understand how COIs can be mitigated and managed in PPPs. Discussion: We wanted to study PPPs, particularly in the areas of global health and agriculture, but discovered no single source of information available to identify and compare various approaches for avoiding and managing COIs in PPPs. This is a significant gap, especially for those wishing to study, compare and strengthen existing COI policies related to PPPs. In order to bridge this gap, we reviewed how PPPs currently address COIs and highlight what might be considered good practice in developing COI policies. We reviewed the online COI policies of 10 PPPs in global health and agriculture, and interviewed two global health PPP chief executives. Summary: Based on our review of policies and interviews, we conclude that there exists a range of good practices including attention to accountability and governance, acknowledgement and disclosure, abstention and withdrawal, reporting and transparency, and independent monitoring. There appears to be a need for PPPs to interact closely and learn from each other on these parameters and to also place more emphasis on independent external monitoring of COIs as a means of strengthening their major social objectives on which their activities are largely predicated. We also recommend the establishment of a web based database, which would serve as a forum to discuss COI issues and how they can be resolved. Background Conflicts of interest (COIs) have been defined as involv- ing a "set of conditions in which professional judgments concerning a primary interest (such as a patient's welfare or validity of research) tends to be unduly influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain)" [1]. COIs can pertain to individuals or entire institutions, and can be financial or non-financial. Much has been written on COIs in fields such as medicine, business, politics, public service, and education. However, little if any guidance has been provided on the methods for managing COIs within the Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) operating in global health and agriculture. Since partnerships between public (by which we mean non profit) and private (by which we mean for profit) organizations will invariably raise issues of COI, the recognition and management of these COIs is critical to the existence of these partnerships. There are many PPPs operating in health and agricul- ture. Product Development PPPs (PD-PPPs) like the Medicines for Malaria Venture or the TB Alliance, assist in the development of novel health products to tackle dis- eases in the developing world. Access PPPs, such as The Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) or the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immu- nization (GAVI), have the goal of improving access to treatments by providing funding mechanisms for pur- chase of existing drugs or vaccines. Similarly, PPPs, which operate in the field of agriculture like the Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), the Interna- tional Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), African Agricultural Tech- nology (AATF), International Potato Centre (CIP) and Bioversity International (BI) work to develop, through research, novel seedlings and agricultural practices to * Correspondence: peter.singer@mrcglobal.org 1 McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health, University Health Network and University of Toronto, 101 College Street, Suite 406, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Full list of author information is available at the end of the article