# Abstract Global Health Partnerships (GHPs) have contributed significantly to improved global health outcomes as well as the manner in which global health is governed. Yet in a context of an increasingly complex global health landscape, resource scarcity and a shift from disease-specific to systems strengthening approaches, it is important to continually enhance and apply our understanding of how to improve GHP performance. The authors reviewed and synthesised findings from eight independent evaluations of GHPs as well as research projects conducted by the authors over the past several years, the most recent of which involved semi-structured discussions with 20 ‘partnership pioneers’. This paper presents the major drivers of the GHP trend, briefly reviews the significant contributions of GHPs to global health and sets out common findings from evaluations of these global health governance instruments. The paper answers the question of how to improve GHP performance with reference to a series of lessons emerging from the past ten years of experience. These lessons cover the following areas: • Value-added and niche orientation [[comparative advantage]] • Adequate resourcing of secretariats • Management practices • Governance practices • Ensuring divergent interests are met • Systems strengthening • Continuous self-improvement. These and other critical reflections inform the ‘what’s next’ agenda for GHP development. # Conclusion Given the major contributions afforded by the GHP model, we can expect that GHPs will remain a major facet in the global health architecture for years to come. Effective GHPs deliver not only health outcomes but are also, in some way, transformative of partners, imbuing the public sector with business skills and encouraging business to operate with social values. Experience to date, however, also suggests variable performance across different aspects of partnerships. Differential performance carries three linked implications. First, the need for sustained critical reflection and independent evaluation so as to ensure optimal results given the level of resources that collaboration demands. Second, the benefit of opening up spaces for public debate so that the findings from evaluation can be frankly discussed . Third, applying lessons more widely across and within partnerships. As we move from an era of abundance to an era of scarcity, it is increasingly important to ensure that the models applied to solve the challenges of global health are evidence-informed. The first generation of global health partnerships have confronted novel problems in innovative ways, and it is critical that lessons learned over the past ten years inform the solutions of the next generation.