intersektorielt

Intersektorielt refers to approaches that cut across traditional sector boundaries to address issues that span multiple domains, such as health, education, housing, and employment. It involves coordinated planning, shared goals, and pooled resources among public agencies, NGOs, and private partners, often with input from communities and service users.

The concept emerged from public health and development policy and has been popularized by frameworks such as Health in All Policies (HiAP) and intersectoral governance. It is used in national welfare systems as well as in city planning and international development to achieve more holistic results.

Core elements include joint problem framing, integrated policy design, formal agreements or memoranda of understanding, cross-sector teams, data sharing with compatible privacy safeguards, and common indicators for monitoring progress.

Common applications include reducing health disparities through housing and transport interventions; coordinated responses to homelessness, child development, and early intervention; climate resilience and disaster risk reduction; urban planning that links health, transport, and housing; and social welfare programs that combine income support with education and employment services.

Benefits cited in policy literature include greater effectiveness, efficiency, equity, and the ability to address upstream determinants of outcomes that no single sector can tackle alone.

Challenges include entrenched bureaucratic silos, fragmented funding, incompatible performance metrics, data access and privacy considerations, power imbalances, and the need for sustained political will. Successful implementation often requires explicit governance structures, pilot projects, capacity building, stakeholder mapping, and transparent evaluation.

In practice, intersektorielt work is associated with frameworks like HiAP and multi-sectoral coordinating bodies in cities, and with cross-sector approaches to public health and social services.