During this episode Tiwonge speaks with Lloyd Matowe, CEO of Pharmaceutical Systems Africa, about the importance of recognizing supply chain work as a profession in Africa. Regardless of who is managing health products, be it pharmacists or a new workforce cadre, managing supply chains is a skillset that requires training. Tiwonge and Lloyd discuss how African countries can achieve this, and stress that high-performing supply chains must have a sustainable pipeline of locally, adequately trained supply chain professionals. Lloyd has many years of experience as a pharmacist and at the time of recording this episode he was chair of the People that Deliver Coalition. His term ended in January 2023. 

Listen now!

Read VillageReach’s Supply Chain Integration Framework to learn more: www.productstopeople.org.  

Learn more about supply chain workforce professionalization.

Links:

VillageReach: Supply Chain Professionalization

Pharmaceutical Systems Africa

People that Deliver

Tiwonge Mkandawire on LinkedIn

Lloyd Matowe on LinkedIn

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During this episode Tiwonge speaks with Remi Adeseun, Director of Salient Advisory about the untapped private sector potential in Africa. A number of local private sector companies are available to strengthen public health supply chain capacity in a variety of ways such as distributing health products, providing discrete activities (warehousing, transportation or cold chain maintenance) and integrating technology. However, these resources remain largely underutilized in many African countries. Adeseun discusses important elements of strong public-private partnerships and how governments can create an enabling environment to increase private sector participation in the public health supply chain. 

Listen now to learn more about private sector capacity in Africa. 

Read VillageReach’s Supply Chain Integration Framework to learn more: www.productstopeople.org.

Learn more about the Investing in Innovation (I3) Program at Salient Advisory: 

Links:

VillageReach

Salient Advisory

Tiwonge Mkandawire on LinkedIn

Remi Adeseun on LinkedIn

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During this episode Tiwonge speaks with Madeleine Ballard, executive director of the Community Health Impact Coalition, and Dickson Nassim Mbewe, a senior health surveillance assistant (community health worker) with the Malawi Ministry of Health. An important component of the VillageReach Supply Chain Integration Framework is how to get health products beyond the health facility and into the communities. An important vehicle for this is community health workers (CHWs), who are often the only contact people in hard-to-reach communities have with the public health system in Africa.

Madeleine opens the show by explaining what CHWs do and their contributions to the health system, including their huge impact in terms of saving lives. Dickson then gives his perspective as a CHW serving his community for the last 17 years, describing the preventive and curative services he provides. But CHWs can not provide these critical services without consistent access to health products. Listen to the conversation as Madeleine and Dickson discuss some of the challenges CHWs face and how to address these challenges and ensure CHWs are supervised, counted, supplied, paid and integrated into public health supply chains. 

Listen now to learn more about the important role of CHWs. 

Read the most recent research on CHWs access to essential medicines from CHIC. 

Read VillageReach’s Supply Chain Integration Framework to learn more: www.productstopeople.org.  

Read more about VillageReach’s Supply Chain for Community Health Workers solution. 

Links:

VillageReach

Community Health Impact Coalition

Dickson Nassim Mbewe 

Madeleine Ballard on LinkedIn

Tiwonge Mkandawire on LinkedIn

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In this first episode of VillageReach’s new 4-episode limited-series podcast, ‘Products to People: An Integrated Public Health Supply Chain, host Tiwonge Mkandawire welcomes Kelly Hamblin to talk about supply chain integration - what it is, and why it’s so important for building high-performing public health supply chains that are more equitable, people-centered, resilient, and sustainable.  

As a Senior Program Officer for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Kelly highlights the importance of supply chains mirroring the way health workers provide services – because their day to day work is already integrated. Additionally, Kelly emphasizes the critical role of government in leading supply chain integration and the importance of partners listening to government voices. 

Listen to the episode as Tiwonge and Kelly discuss how we can all be more purposeful in designing programs for integrated health systems in order to get products to people when and where they need them. 

Read VillageReach’s Supply Chain Integration Framework to learn more: www.productstopeople.org

Read more about VillageReach’s Supply Chain Investment and Advocacy work in Africa. 

Links: 

VillageReach - https://www.villagereach.org/supply-chain-integration-framework/

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - https://www.gatesfoundation.org/

Twinge Mkandawire on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiwonge-mkandawire-94615949/?originalSubdomain=za

Kelly Hamblin on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-hamblin-2839054/

Read Episode Blog - https://www.villagereach.org/podcast/products-to-people-episode-1/

VillageReach is a global non-profit that works to transform health care delivery to reach everyone. A critical part of health care delivery is getting products to people. By building stronger public health supply chains that deliver lifesaving vaccines and medicines, people everywhere can access the health care they need to thrive. Join VillageReach’s Director of Supply Chain Tiwonge Mkandawire for conversations about what it means to have an integrated supply chain. 

Supply chains of the future need to be resilient, people-centered, equitable and sustainable and VillageReach’s Integration Framework offers an avenue to achieve these attributes within a public health supply chain. Listen each month to learn about different components of integration and hear from other global health experts. Download and read our Integration Framework to learn more.