Access to health products is one of the main priorities of the World Health Organization (WHO). Unfortunately, this guiding principle is undermined by stock-outs, lower quality drugs and weakness of the supply system: poor needs assessment, illegal circuits, non-compliant storage areas, lack of reliable information systems, lack of financial resources for procurement, etc. In this context, global initiatives fighting diseases and, more particularly, striving to reach Development Goals 4, 5, and 6, recognize the need for Health Systems Strengthening (HSS). One of the main objectives is to develop an effective and efficient supply system through institutional and organizational capacity-building which makes human resource (HR) development a strategic priority.

In order to identify the relevant actions that must be taken to improve health systems’ supply chains, Bioforce proposed to conduct a survey. As a result of this initiative, the present survey aims to generate a complete picture of the performance of the workforce in charge of SCM in the West African sub-region, and to consider areas for improvement.

To respond to widespread and systemic human resource weaknesses within health systems, a broad group of governments and organizations have created a joint initiative—People that Deliver (PtD)—which aims to strengthen supply chain personnel capacity while encouraging the professionalization of their role within the health system. This global initiative, in association with the project (a U.S. Agency for International Development–funded project), developed a human resource assessment guide and tool to gather data on human resource opportunities and challenges associated with supply chain management (SCM). The data collected are expected to strengthen the capacity of supply chain personnel by working with host countries to build human resource systems and advocate for the professionalization of supply chain management. Strengthening the capacity of public health supply chain personnel from the top down will ensure that the supply chains and health systems operate more effectively, which will improve access to health supplies and save lives.

A collection of resources comprising the Training Strategy 2017-2021, Annual Training Plan, Competency Framework and job descriptions.

This competency framework sets out the technical, managerial, organizational and personal skills that staff at headquarters and state level within NMSF are expected to have and the professional competency profile for every post in the organization. It complements the People that Deliver (PtD) Health Supply Chain Competency Framework for Managers and Leaders and ensures that each activity can be undertaken to a required level depending on the post.

This article describes how NMSF, as a semi-autonomous pharmaceuticals supply agency, has been successful in partnering with UNICEF and the People that Deliver (PtD) Initiative in developing a comprehensive strategy for the development and retention of its workforce. Success is attributed to strong leadership with a focus on continual improvement of all aspects of the organization.

PtD pursued the development of case studies that document how public and private sector organizations successfully manage the human capital in their supply chains. This report includes the first two of these case studies for Imperial Health Sciences and Central Medical Supplies Public Corporation (Sudan). PtD intends to continue developing case studies to offer the broader community examples of human capital management that they can adopt to improve supply chain execution.

This survey is part of a series of the eight country surveys realized in the context of the People that Deliver Initiative. The joint methodology used for these surveys is based on the “assessment guide for capacity in public health supply chain management” elaborated and validated by Initiative members in 2011, in accordance with the USAID model.