•Boost Local Talent Development To Solve Supply
Chain Challenges Too
Chioma Umeha
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| L-R: Dr. Muntaqa Umar-Sadiq, CEO, Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria, Jim Coughlan, Global Solutions Director, UPS Foundation, Azuka Okeke, Regional Director, Africa Resource Centre, Prof Jarrod Goentzel, Founder and Director of the MIT Humanitarian Supply Chain Lab in MIT, USA, and Bronwyn Timm, Strategy and Partnership Lead, Africa Resource Centre, South Africa at the maiden ARC Partnership Forum in Lagos, Nigeria. |
Lagos – There has been increasing global clamour
for Universal Health Coverage (UHC) to deliver access to required health
services of sufficient quality. This is just as pundits are saying that UHC
cannot be achieved without access to medicines and health commodities.
In view of this, experts are worried over the huge
gap in Nigeria’s supply chain and logistics systems amid calls for UHC.
Recent World Bank ranking shows Nigeria
underperforms global and regional peers on key levers of logistics and supply
chain efficiency.
Lagos State Chamber of Commerce and Industry
(LCCI) transport and logistics survey conducted in 2014 showed that 25 per cent
of the annual profit of industrial operators in Lagos State is lost to the
clumsy transportation system.
More worrisome is the fact that studies confirm
shortage of logistics staff and managers, however, universities in Nigeria are
not aligned well with industry or government needs in supply chain capacity.
To change the paradigm, ARC Nigeria have therefore
called for collaboration of the public sector with private sector companies to
facilitate the transfer of supply chain expertise to strengthen public health
supply chain systems in the country.
ARC Nigeria, which is a collaboration of Private
Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said
that the participation of the private sector would strengthen public health
supply chain, especially in ensuring availability of vaccines, essential
medicines, and medical products.
Speaking at the maiden ARC Partnership Forum, Dr.
Muntaqa Umar-Sadiq, CEO, Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria, revealed
that the private sector has the expertise, resources and capabilities that the
public health sector can benefit from to increase the availability of medicines
& health commodities at the last mile.
Dr. Muntaqa also said that this could be achieved
by building efficient, effective and resilient supply chain systems.
“The impact ARC aims to achieve is an improved
performance of the supply chains to increase the availability of medicines
health commodities at the last mile.
“Collectively, the private sector possesses both
tangible & intangible assets that give it a distinct advantage in tackling
specific health issues, including building efficient, effective & resilient
supply chain systems,” Dr. Muntaqa explained.
Meanwhile, Azuka Okeke, the Regional Director,
Africa Resource Centre for Supply Chain disclosed that ARC Nigeria is currently
working to build a centralised and regional Supply Chain Resource Centre that
can provide independent advice, develop partnerships and share experiences and
learning across countries to help Ministries of Health meet their public health
goals.
“ARC is focusing on areas that collectively
leverage supply chain expertise, tools and capabilities to support performance
improvements in the public health system.
“These areas include supporting supply chain
strategy, advocate for supply chain investments and provide independent advice
and expertise; support Ministries of Health to shape investments and align
donors and implementing partners, Azuka explained.
Others are, access private sector expertise,
tools, methods and capability to improve supply chain transformations and
supply chain management as well as broker partnerships to strengthen Ministries
of Health capability and build long-term talent for supply chain in Africa,”
the Regional Director added.
Sharing insights on development local talents
in-country for supply chain in Nigeria, Babatunde Ogunleye-Johnson, Programme
Manager, ARC Nigeria revealed that ARC Nigeria partnered with Massachusetts of
Information Technology (MIT), USA to pioneer a SCALE Center in Nigeria with
access to a global network of programs, research, and partnerships to drive
supply chain innovation.
“The SCALE Centre will develop local supply chain
management, human capital and expertise and open up new opportunities for
innovation especially in supply chain and logistics. SCALE Nigeria will be a
platform to cultivate the active exchange of new concepts, methods, and
technologies across stakeholders,” Ogunleye-Johnson added.
The ARC Partnership forum brought together
corporate private sector partners from Pharmaceuticals, FMCGs, Logistics &
Transport, Telecommunications, etc. including government and development
partners.
The aim is to share experiences and explore new
ways of partnering with the public sector to achieve measurable results in
healthcare.
Also, the forum brought to the fore how the
private sector is strengthening public health supply chain.
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