The conditions and contributions of ‘Whole of Society’ governance in the Dutch ‘All about Health…’ programme

This chapter is about a programme called “All about Health…” the programme aims at improving health by engaging all members of society in a social health movement, which greatly resembles a whole-of-society approach. The country chosen for this case study is the Netherlands, as the government and numerous organizations have engaged in collaboration. There are various CSOs, commercial partners, municipalities and government agencies and services involved. While there are many concrete health related “pledges” made between the partners of the programme, the overall aim is to move from government to governance and to involve many more stakeholders in policy making and implementation at all levels. Most prominently, partners organised events and provided services to the public. Additionally, they provided evidence, contributed to policy developed, exercised advocacy, helped consensus building, acted as watch dogs, provided services and acted as self-regulators. Strong government support, a small programme office and an ongoing programme evaluation have been instrumental to the progress of the programme. The authors conclude that the first three years of “All about Health…” seems to provide an early backing of the hypotheses that CSOs contribute to health though it is too early for a final assessment.