NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, May 12, 2014

Myanmar is one step closer to ensuring that women and families throughout the country receive high quality reproductive health services and products thanks to a UNFPA, and in partnership with John Snow Inc. and the Ministry of Health, backed standardized national logistics supply chain system which was announced on Thursday (08 May 2014) in Nay Pyi Taw, the nation’s capital. A total of 26 professionals attended a 7 day intensive training session on how to implement as well as operate the upcoming system.

Of these 22 newly graduated so-called “Master Trainers” consisting of key personnel from the Myanmar Ministry of Health (MoH) will subsequently over the next two months, train over 400 public health staff such as medical officers, midwives, nurses and public health supervisors from all levels of the national health care system on using the system. The system is designed to record, track and manage the procurement and distribution of some 30 essential reproductive health products by computer in different parts of the country.

Within the next 3 months, the new and intricate supply chain system will be piloted in twelve townships, in four states and regions as part of the UNFPA programme. These include Mandalay, Ayeyarwady, Southern Shan and Yangon. The pilot will serve to inform key policy decisions and strategies for implementing a much larger nationwide initiative that will be supported by USAID through the Supply Chain Management System (SCMS).