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Objective: To determinate the clarity, relevance and per tinence of a primary health care evaluation strategy for different Latin American health sub-systems., Material and Methods: This strategy was assessed using workshops held with decision makers and administrative managers from a public health organization, a social insurance and a private insurance health organization. The study took place in the province of Santa Fe (Argentina) between May 2006 and May 2007., Results: The strategy was determined to be clear and relevant by all organizations, but highly applicable only in the public case. The social-insurance and private cases questioned the pertinence of objectives related to community participation, intersectoral actions and a focus on social determinants of health, in addition to considering it necessary to restrict the scope of ideas related to universal access and equity with regard to their client population., Discussion: The evaluation of the pertinence of the strategy was explained by the particularities of the institutional context, as well as the goals and survival strategies used by each organization.

The term governance is used more and more often in the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of public policies. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to shed light on its meaning, and to study its applicability for the study of recent public health policies in Latin America. After discussing the differences between governance and the close concepts of management, governability and government, we propose the adoption of the notion of Giddens' duality of social structure for better understanding of the governance processes. Then we use this theoretical framework for reviewing the conceptual and empirical implications of the set of papers about governance and health in Latin America included in the present special issue of the Journal of Public Health. Recognizing that the debate on governance is not closed, we end the paper highlighting the main contributions of the revised works, namely: the importance of equity in decision-making processes, the appreciation of the political nature of governance, and the advantages and limitations of the clan mechanism of governance for regulating interactions among actors involved in the health policy decision-making processes.