A New Alliance for Health Logistics in LAC

On June 7, 2013 a group of committed development organizations launched the “Getting Health Products to People – Alliance for Health Logistics” that seeks to improve health product availability throughout the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region.  To do this, the partners plan to leverage their collective resources and share knowledge about interventions aimed at strengthening public health supply chains, which are essential to helping men, women, and children access essential health products.

The founding members of this new alliance are the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition, the USAID, the SM2015 Initiative implemented by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Pan American Health Organization, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the USAID | DELIVER PROJECT, Population Services International, and the Supply Chain Management System (SCMS) project. In addition to the founding members, other organizations invited to the event included the Slim Foundation, private foundations, and other global networks, such as Global Business Community for Health and the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

This alliance was formed based on the evidence of the strategic importance of supply chains. Various international institutions and development banks have carried out numerous studies that show the importance of investing in supply chains as an essential step in accelerating social and economic development throughout the region. From the perspective of the health sector, investment in support structures—such as human resources, information systems, and transportation—may have multiple effects to increase availability of essential medicines. The Alliance will cover a broad range of product categories including reproductive health (RH), family planning (FP), non-communicable diseases (NCDs), maternal and child health, nutrition, and HIV.  The objective is to forge synergies among partners to strengthen public health supply chains for increased efficiency of integrated logistics management systems.

During the meeting, the results framework and the concept note was shared with the audience. The core members agreed that by bringing various actors together, forging public and private partnerships, and thinking beyond institutional confines, the alliance will be able to not only support good projects, but promote successful scale-up of interventions into great programs that can be sustained by local governments and private organizations. This is why the new alliance, Getting Health Products to People, is so important.

For more information on this news, you may contact Anabella Sanchez, Regional Manager of USAID | DELIVER PROJECT.

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