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 Page 15 of
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Programme Priorities |
| Contraceptive requirements and logistics management needs |
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Reproductive health, including family planning and sexual health Adolescent reproductive health Reducing maternal mortality Emergency assistance in refugee situations HIV/AIDS Population and development strategies Advocacy Women's empowerment and gender issues Strengthening programme effectiveness Decentralization National capacity-building Monitoring and evaluation Training Contraceptive requirements and logistics management needs Partnership with NGOs and civil society ICPD+5
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The regular and predictable supply and availability of a range of safe, reliable and affordable contraceptives are keystones of effective reproductive health programmes. Accurate estimates of contraceptive requirements and an efficient logistics management system are necessary to facilitate the ready availability of contraceptive commodities. To strengthen national capacity to forecast contraceptive needs and manage contraceptive supply and distribution, UNFPA launched the Global Initiative on Contraceptive Requirements and Logistics Management Needs in Developing Countries. The first round of indepth studies took place during 1992-1994. Additional studies have been undertaken in subsequent years. In 1997, in-depth studies on contraceptive requirements and logistics management needs were carried out in Ethiopia and Burkina Faso. Follow-up studies were also carried out in Bangladesh and Nepal, and technical support was provided to studies undertaken in Sudan and Tunisia. The impact of the Global Initiative has been clearly visible in the attention that countries are now giving to contraceptive forecasting and logistics management. These key areas have been highlighted in several of the recently approved country programmes supported by the Fund. To help build national capacity in logistics management, the Global Initiative organized four Logistics Management Training Strategy Workshops in 1997, in collaboration with the CSTs. The workshops were held in May, in Harare, with participants from Malawi, Namibia, the United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe; in July, in Dakar, with participants from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea and Senegal; in November, in Bangkok, with participants from Bangladesh, Cambodia, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Pakistan; and in December, in Amman, with participants from Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen. A key aspect of the workshops was the development and drafting, by each participating two-person country team, of a strategy to build logistics-management capacity, to be taken back to the respective country for finalization and eventual implementation with coordinated inputs from the Government and donors. A workshop originally scheduled to take place in Santiago, Chile, in 1997 was rescheduled for 1998. Additional workshops are planned in 1998 to train participants from other countries in Africa and Eastern Europe. The Global Initiative has benefited from close collaboration and cooperation with developing and donor countries, the World Bank, and international NGOs such as The Rockefeller Foundation, The Population Council, IPPF and the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH). Recognizing the key importance of donor coordination in facilitating the timely and appropriate supply of reproductive health commodities, including contraceptives for STD/AIDS prevention, the Global Initiative maintains a database on donor-supplied contraceptive commodities. The database has recently been expanded to include data on donor support for logistics management capacity-building in recipient countries. Both commodities and logistics support data and information are reported annually by the Global Initiative in the UNFPA publication Donor Support for Contraceptive Commodities. In an effort to strengthen the contribution of the private sector in the delivery of quality contraceptive commodities, as called for in chapter 15 of the ICPD Programme of Action, the Global Initiative, under the guidance of its Working Group, organized a consultative meeting of oral contraceptive manufacturers, government representatives and members of the development community to explore the role of the private sector in providing affordable, commercially priced contraceptives and reproductive health commodities in developing countries. The meeting, which took place in July in New York, concluded, inter alia, that the private sector should play an expanded role in this area, and that much could be accomplished by means of negotiated agreements among the three interested parties: developing country governments, donors, and manufacturers. Concluding that UNFPA could play an important role in facilitating such agreements, the meeting recommended that the Fund organize market-segmentation studies in selected countries. It was further agreed that, with the support of The Rockefeller Foundation, a follow-up meeting would be organized in September 1998 in Bellagio, Italy. In the meantime, the Global Initiative is working with the principal players in identifying likely candidate countries where collaborative activities may be undertaken. The Global Contraceptive Commodity Programme (GCCP), established in response to decision 96/3 of the Executive Board, became operational in 1997. The immediate objective of the GCCP is to provide essential buffer stocks of contraceptives to facilitate prompt response to urgent and emergency requests for contraceptives from developing countries. The need to arrange contraceptive stock holdings resulted from the often lengthy lead times for commonly requested contraceptive products for the international public sector. The ready availability of stocks is necessary to avert potential disruptions of national reproductive health programmes. The long-term objective of the GCCP is to contribute, in close cooperation with the Global Initiative, to the overall strengthening of reproductive health programmes by improving mechanisms and modalities for addressing unmet needs for contraceptives; increasing contraceptive choice; and ensuring quality in meeting the contraceptive needs of men and women, through such inputs as technical training and technical advisory services, and by improving management information systems, warehousing, stock-keeping and transportation. The initial contribution of UNFPA to the GCCP in the amount of $5 million was supplemented in 1997 through a contribution from the Department for International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom, in the amount of £1 million. The GCCP, which is managed as a trust fund, operates as a revolving fund from which UNFPA projects are able to purchase inventories of required contraceptives in order to meet the emergency or urgent needs of developing countries. It responded during 1997 to emergency or urgent requests for contraceptives from Albania, Armenia, Bolivia, Bulgaria, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Eritrea, Georgia, Jordan, Moldova, Myanmar, Oman, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Turkmenistan, Turkey and Zambia. The contraceptive commodities provided by the GCCP during 1997 included condoms, oral contraceptives, intrauterine devices (IUDs), vaginal foaming tablets and injectables. Guidelines, policies and procedures governing the operation of the GCCP revolving fund were widely disseminated in February 1998 to all UNFPA staff at headquarters and in the field.
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| Foreword | Introduction | UNFPA in 1997 | Programme Priorities | |