The Practice
An independent advisory practice, Geneva and worldwide.
Health Solutions was established in March 2026. It advises on the structuring of health investments, the lifecycle of health and social infrastructure, private sector participation and public-private partnerships. Engagements are led at senior level throughout.
Clients
Ministries of health across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Pacific. Multilateral development banks, United Nations agencies and bilateral co-operation agencies. Private investment groups, developers and operators.
Model
A focused boutique, drawing on a worldwide network of specialist experts, engaged assignment by assignment.
Institutional capacity
Delivered with partner firms in health infrastructure delivery and health economics, and with design and senior technical networks.
Distinctive proposition
Seven reasons clients choose us.
One
Senior practitioner depth
Engagements are led by a partner with twenty-five years of front-line responsibility across WHO, the ILO, the European Commission, multilateral development banks and international consulting.
Two
Proprietary instruments
Six named methods, each built as a working digital tool, which compress upstream uncertainty for investors and produce structured, defensible evidence for capital decisions.
Three
Public and private fluency
Command of how multilateral instruments, blended finance and partnership structures interact in health, derived from operating inside the institutions that design them.
Four
A curated network
Multi-disciplinary engagements assembled from senior individual experts and partner firms, each chosen for the specific demands of the assignment. There is no standing panel.
Five
Complex contracting in health
Partnership and complex contracting expertise that joins legal command to operational and technical judgement and to commercial knowledge, applied in health.
Six
Business fluency with legal capability
A working command of both the commercial and the legal side of a transaction, held together by an understanding of the whole project and asset lifecycle.
Seven
Reach across systems and legal traditions
Experience of low, middle and high income countries across the regions of the world, of civil law and common law jurisdictions, and of health systems in widely different settings and configurations.
Languages and legal traditions
English and French. Civil law and common law.
Legal training in Paris and London, and work in more than seventy countries.
Leadership
Dr Gwenaël Dhaene
Managing Director
A specialist in public-private partnership design and optimisation for the health and social sectors, and a public and health law specialist, working on partnerships and complex contracting since 2003.
Twenty-five years across the public and private sectors, some fifteen of them as a United Nations official, with engagements in more than seventy countries. From 2021 to 2026 he advised on capital investment and health infrastructure at World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva, leading the capital investment in health workstreams and arranging blended and concessional finance alongside the European Investment Bank, the African Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. From 2015 to 2021 he co-ordinated the global network for value for money in health and hosted the Organization’s Fair Pricing Forum.
Earlier he co-ordinated technical advice at the International Labour Organization in Geneva and led the public sector advisory practice for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at IHS Global. He is the author of the six instruments.
Education
Doctorate in public and health law (on PPPs in health), summa cum laude, Paris I Sorbonne. LLM in public business law, Aix-Marseille. LLB in law, Kingston University, London.
Languages
French and English to full professional fluency. Italian proficient. German to limited working proficiency.
Selected expertise
- Structuring of public-private partnerships, concessions and complex contracting instruments in health
- Lifecycle approach to health and social infrastructure: diagnostic, planning and optimisation
- Upstream capital investment, from pre-feasibility through feasibility to design
- Private sector participation in health, and the terms on which commercial capacity enters public systems
- Health system preparedness and resilience across its five elements
- EU external action in health, United Nations health programmes and multilateral health financing architecture
How we deliver
Network of senior experts, and partner firms.
Each engagement is assembled from two complementary resources: senior individual experts who deploy alongside the practice, and partner firms that provide institutional capacity in clearly bounded domains.
Network of senior experts
- Specialised health architects, with hospital, laboratory and primary care experience in resource-constrained and high-complexity settings
- Civil and structural engineers, experienced in seismic, climate-resilient and tropical health facility design
- Financial analysts and modellers, covering lifecycle costing, PPP financial structuring and concession economics
- Health economists, specialising in cost-effectiveness, health technology assessment and financing instrument design
- Legal and procurement specialists, in PPP contracts, concession agreements and complex public procurement
- Public health and policy advisers, with operational experience in WHO programmes, EU external action and ministry implementation
Partner firms
South Africa
Benguela Health Ltd
Health infrastructure development and project delivery in sub-Saharan Africa.
Denmark
Triangulate Health Ltd
Health economics and health technology assessment, with Nordic experience.
Italy
Design and architecture network
Designers and architects specialising in health infrastructure, from functional programming through to schematic and detailed design.
Worldwide
Senior technical network
Civil and structural engineers, building services engineers, cost consultants and financial modellers, engaged assignment by assignment.
Where we work
Geneva and worldwide. Ministries of health across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Pacific. Multilateral development banks and international institutions, including the European Investment Bank, the African Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. United Nations agencies and bilateral co-operation agencies, and private investment groups.