Supply chain what we do

UNFPA evaluates and implements quality control measures for medicines not under WHO Prequalification or ERP assessment in accordance with good practices. This quality evaluation will be based on Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) compliance and applicable technical documentation reviewed and approved by an internal technical committee.

Medical Devices

Medical devices and equipment are vital in the screening, prevention, treatment and management of illnesses, diseases and health interventions. UNFPA follows recommendations on standards and quality systems for medical devices set by the WHO and the International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF) to prevent the supply and use of substandard and falsified devices and equipment and safeguard public health and safety.

Capacity building

UNFPA offers capacity strengthening in the form of technical support, training, and mentoring activities for key stakeholders in the production and regulation of sexual and reproductive health commodities.

Social responsibility

UNFPA supports and encourages suppliers to participate in the UN Global Compact, a voluntary initiative covering human rights, labor rights and the environment. Suppliers must comply with the UNFPA General Conditions of Contract, which contain specific provisions regarding child labor, mines and sexual exploitation.

The LMA process aims to monitor and strengthen the supply chain used to safeguard and distribute these essential reproductive health supplies, through a multifaceted approach that allows UNFPA to:

1. Increase its visibility of the adequate safeguarding, management, and use for intended purposes of family planning, maternal health, and other programme supplies UNFPA provides.
2. Holistically quantify actual fiduciary and delivery risk, to allow for improved programming and better discharge fiduciary duty to the donors that provide the financial resources used to procure the supplies.
3. Help UNFPA partners to better manage the programme supplies entrusted to them, by identifying supply chain capacity gaps, preventing fraud, and minimizing waste and losses.
4. Enforce accountability for the safeguarding, management, and use of the supplies by UNFPA partners. 

How is this done?

The LMA process ensures that supplies reach the last mile through the utilization of five different tools: supply chain maps, supply chain management capacity and risk assessments, programme supplies report, and finally, spot-checks and audits.

The LMA process builds on agreements signed with all implementing partners which clearly outline the terms and conditions under which the partners must manage, safeguard and distribute the supplies.

Development of supply chain maps is the first step in the LMA Process. The supply chain maps provide UNFPA with an initial level of visibility of key components of the partners’ supply chain at the national, subnational, and local levels. As they are updated on an annual basis, UNFPA can easily see the physical flow of UNFPA programme supplies and corresponding information flows.

Supply chain management capacity assessments allow UNFPA to identify the  strengths and weaknesses of implementing partners in a large realm of relevant supply-chain management areas, and identify measures to improve their performance.

Supply chain management risk assessments are used to assess the risk inherent to the handling and distribution of the supplies through a model that reflects eight relevant risk factors across three key areas: external, delivery, and fiduciary risk. Each partner is assigned a “risk score”, which objectively communicates the level of risk associated with the supplies reaching women and girls in a specific context, and determines the scope and frequency of subsequent LMA process activities.

Programme supplies reports, the fourth tool of the LMA process, provide detailed information on receipts and distributions of UNFPA programme supplies, waste and losses throughout the reporting period, and the stocks on-hand available for future distribution. This report allows UNFPA and partners to better support programmatic decisions, improve traceability of UNFPA deliveries to partners, and identify the extent of waste and losses and fraud instances.

On-site verifications (referred to as spot-checks) and independent inventory audits are performed to quantify the actual level of fiduciary and delivery risk faced in the down-stream supply chain activities. They both involve the following:  tracing of deliveries and distributions down to the receiving facilities, review of inventory records, measurement of waste and losses, an inspection of facilities against a set of critical warehousing and inventory management standards, assessment of the effectiveness of inventory accounting controls, and the identification of “red flags.” These are potentially indicative of instances of product diversion or other fraud schemes that could affect the supplies donated by UNFPA.

What has our progress been?

With the data gathered from the LMA Process, UNFPA has not only gained a better understanding and greater visibility of our partners supply chains but also made the transition from gathering data to creating tangible actions for the continued strengthening of our partners. We have prevented large scale waste & losses, we have strengthened our partners supply chains and capacity, and we are even helping digitize health systems. The Last Mile Assurance Process has been central to the sustainable enhancement of our partner’s supply chains.