On September 29, 2006, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded Task Order 1 (TO1) of an Indefinite Quantity Contract (IQC) to increase the availability of essential health supplies for USAID beneficiaries. TO1 improves essential health commodity supply chains by strengthening logistics management information systems, streamlining distribution systems, identifying financial resources for procurement and supply chain operation, and enhancing forecasting and procurement planning.
The project supports USAID’s bureaus and missions by strengthening integrated in-country supply chains and the environments in which they operate. TO1 promotes improved regional and global commitment to, collaboration with, and financing for long-term contraceptive availability. The task order also supports USAID’s Central Contraceptive Procurement operations and provides direct procurement services for a range of essential health commodities, including contraceptives and condoms, essential drugs, and select commodities for HIV/AIDS, malaria, maternal and child health, and infectious diseases.
Since 1986, the USAID | DELIVER PROJECT and its predecessors, the DELIVER project and the Family Planning Logistics Management (FPLM) project, have helped countries improve the availability of contraceptives. Currently, the project provides technical assistance to approximately 21 countries with field offices in 14 of those countries . The project’s technical assistance interventions for family planning includes all aspects of the supply chain, including forecasting, financing, procurement, distribution (transportation and storage), inventory management, logistics management information systems, and strengthening policy and advocacy.
Our motto—No Product, No Program—is a reminder that health programs cannot operate successfully without a full supply of essential commodities. The project encourages policymakers and donors to support logistics as a critical factor in the overall success of their health care mandates.
The project responds to the dynamic environment of field programs by focusing on the following three objectives:
Objective 1: Improve and strengthen in-country supply systems and their environments, with a special emphasis on local institutions and host country professionals.
The project strengthens supply systems for selected countries by—
improving the ability of local systems to forecast, finance, procure, and deliver essential health supplies
strengthening local capacity to design, operate, and manage logistics systems, affect policy change, ensure the quality of supplies, and monitor and evaluate logistics system performance.
encouraging commodity security, which will promote a policy environment that strengthens commitment to the improved availability of contraceptives, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, and other essential health supplies through public and private sources, over the long term
improving data management and decision making.
Objective 2: Collaborate with global and regional partners to increase their awareness of and commitment and ability to strengthen national commodity security—ensuring the long-term availability of health commodities.
The USAID | DELIVER PROJECT raises awareness and advocacy by making commodity security a part of global and regional development agendas and mobilizes new and additional resources for commodities, including the systems to deliver them.
The project collaborate with international and regional partners for improved planning and implementation by—
increasing and strengthening access to and use of timely, consistent, and reliable data to better align financing and product flows to meet country needs
developing solutions to drive increased reliability, predictability, and efficiency of financing for short- and long-term supply needs
establishing and implementing international protocols and standards for supply chain management.
The project supports USAID’s central procurement systems by providing technical and administrative support to USAID’s contraceptive and condom procurement contracts and other health-related contracts. As part of TO1, the project also provides direct procurement services by developing and maintaining a technical, competitive, and transparent capability for procuring a range of selected pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, and other essential health commodities needed to support USAID’s health programs.
In addition to these three objectives, the project operates differently than the previous DELIVER project. This new business model for the project has the following attributes:
innovation and use of best practices
promotion of data-based decision making along the entire supply chain
partnering with local organizations
using the private sector
using local hires in project implementation
using subcontractors’ capacities
“leading from family planning.”
The project designs, develops, strengthens, and, on request, operates safe, reliable, and sustainable supply systems that provide a wide range of affordable essential health commodities, including drugs, diagnostics, and supplies to clients in country programs. The project’s technical support strengthens all aspects of in-country supply chains: forecasting, procurement, distribution, management information systems, quality assurance, storage and infrastructure, and medical waste disposal.
TASK ORDER 1 PARTNERS To support this task order and meet USAID’s objectives, John Snow, Inc., partners with many organizations including—
