June, 2009
June, 2009
Maggie Huff-Rousselle's professional activities over the past 25 years have focussed heavily on pharmaceutical sector financing and management in the international public health sector.
She recently completed an in-depth case-study of the need for, and challenges facing, establishment of a functional Pharmaceutical and Medical Supplies System in the newly independent state of East Timor.
The Case-study is based on a literature review of nearly 75 documents, interviews with over 50 stakeholders and key informants, direct observation, and analysis of financial and inventory data. It reviews the development of the policy and legal framework for the pharmaceutical sector, and the key phases of the commodity supply system, including: product selection through an essential drugs list; procurement hampered by use of procedures that were not appropriate for purchasing drugs for an entire country; the establishment of a centralized warehousing and distribution system; projected financing of the supply system through development of a business plan for the autonomous agency.
In its exploration of the transition from post-conflict situation to health system development, the case study identifies lessons that are broadly applicable to foreign aid and external assistance in other contexts, including the tendency to “poly-prescribe” overly ambitious and overly sophisticated solutions not pragmatically grounded in the current realities of public sector institutional and human resource constraints and capabilities.
· View the complete document here. [Note: the document is large - over 3MB - and may take some time to download.]