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Improving Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Management Systemsin Resource-Limited Countries: Time to Change Approaches to Capacity Building

Lloyd Matowe*

Access to essential medicines continues to be a challenge in most developing countries and is among the Millennium Development Goals targets . Over the past decade, international programs, including the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the World Bank, the United States Agency for International Development, among others, have led to improved access to essential medicines, particularly those for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. For instance, GAVI by end of 2013 had US$8.2 million in pledges for new and underused vaccines, while the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria had received a total of $30.5 billion in pledges and $25.6 billion in contributions . In addition to these, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (pepfar) [4], had US$3.2 billion for HIV and AIDS for Africa alone in their 2014 budgets. Laudable as these efforts are, the availability of commodities alone is not sufficient to improve the overall impact on communities and livelihoods. Accessibility to quality-assured essential medicines needs to be tied to functional pharmaceutical supply chain management systems. Functional pharmaceutical supply management systems enable efficient procurement, distribution, and rational use of life-saving medicines.