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Digital Health in the Global South: Coordination Constraints and the Capital Allocation Problem

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  • Olaniyi Evans

Abstract

Emerging-market digital health is widely treated as capital-starved. It is not. The deeper problem is coordination. Private capital flows to payment-linked consumer applications while the non-rival public goods that make health data valuable, namely identity, interoperability standards, and exchange backbones, remain unfunded. Drawing on WHO, GSMA, OECD, Partech, and Smart Africa data through early 2026, this article frames the sector as a coordination failure across three regions and proposes a constraint-regime typology that links each market's binding bottleneck to the capital structure that fits it. The central risk is misreading the regime, not the addressable market.

Suggested Citation

  • Olaniyi Evans, 2026. "Digital Health in the Global South: Coordination Constraints and the Capital Allocation Problem," Hequation Review, Hequation, vol. 3(2), pages 23-29.
    • Handle: RePEc:heq:heqrev:v3y2026i2a4
    DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.32594553
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    JEL classification:

    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • O25 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Industrial Policy
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage

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