E-DRUG: Global Fund decisions threaten medical Procurement Agencies
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By Aidspan Team
Oct 21st 2020
ABSTRACT
Procurement via the pooled procurement mechanism and Wambo.org reduces the purchasing capacity of national agencies and deprives them of resources necessary for their survival and activities. Those agencies then inflate the prices of commodities that are not subsidized, which raises equity questions for those requiring treatment for other diseases.
From the report:
Multi-national procurement mechanisms rise at the expense of national agencies
The Global Fund Secretariat now carries out most of the procurement of key health products for countries receiving its grants, via its pooled procurement mechanism (PPM) and not a national central procurement agency. (In Africa, only a handful of countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and South Africa use their national institutions for procurement.) Key health products include antiretrovirals (ARVs), antimalarial medication, long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs), and rapid diagnostic tests for HIV and malaria. The Secretariat added the wambo.org platform as an additional system to allow countries to purchase health commodities with domestic and other funds. According to the Global Fund, establishing this multi-national mechanism is justified by:
- a greater capacity to negotiate prices and the potential to achieve economies of scale when acquiring health products, which account for the greatest expenditure within grant budgets (the average was 40% according to the BIG annual report in 2017 but is now around 60%, with peaks of up to 55% in Guinea-Bissau, 67% in Congo-Brazzaville or 68% in Togo
- difficulties encountered by certain countries in complying with tendering regulations or the Global Funds policy on health product quality.
Depending on the country, health commodities purchased by the Global Fund and other partners represent between 30% and 40% of the value of the health products purchased by central procurement agencies, according to ACAME members calculations. These figures confirm the trend to transform procurement agencies into logistics platforms focused on distributing, and no longer on purchasing, pharmaceutical products as initially intended.
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read the complete information here
https://www.aidspan.org/en/c/article/5379
Carinne Bruneton
E-med@healthnet.org
<carinne.bruneton@hotmail.fr>