The “One Government” Approach Sets the Foundation for Implementing the 10-Year Roadmap for Government of Uganda's Health Supply Chain Self-reliance
Posted on: 2023-04-26 00:00:00
January 20, 2022, saw the unveiling of the 10-Year Roadmap for Government of Uganda’s Health Supply Chain Self-Reliance, which aims to strengthen the government’s capacity to effectively plan, finance, and manage national health supply chain priority needs independent of donor support. This is in line with the Government of Uganda’s Vision 2040 and National Development Plan III which seek to make Uganda more self-reliant and progress to a middle-income country status. The roadmap describes the short-, medium- and long-term investment needs of Uganda’s health supply chain system over the next decade.
The roadmap development process brought together the Government of Uganda’s ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) that have a critical role to play in the health supply chain as a single entity to achieve a common goal. This “one government” approach to developing and implementing the 10-year health supply chain roadmap seeks to maximize the use of existing resources, competencies, and capacities within MDAs to act on Uganda's health supply chain priorities in the next 10 years as shown in the illustration below. The approach further strengthens inter-sectoral collaboration, leadership, and ownership since the roadmap’s successful implementation requires multisectoral planning and programming.
During the roadmap development process, a robust stakeholder mapping, analysis, and plan for engagement identified stakeholders’ diverse interests and their potential influence on the supply chain. The appropriate mode of engagement was also established with guidance from the Inter-Ministerial Task Force of the national health commodities supply chain. This Task Force is a government-led working group bringing together line ministries and donors such as USAID, UNICEF, Global Fund, and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, & Development Office, with SSCS as the secretariat, to plan Uganda’s future health supply chain. Through the Task Force, the different government ministries, civil society organizations, private sector actors, and health development partners whose interests aligned with the roadmap’s aspirations, were identified and engaged throughout the development process.
The strategic inception meetings held with leaders from the government ministries emphasized the need to adopt and institutionalize the one-government approach. Meetings were held with the Ministries of Health (MoH); Finance, Planning and Economic Development (MoFPED); Local Government (MoLG); and Public Service (MoPS); the Office of the Prime Minister; agencies including the National Planning Authority, National Medical Stores, Joint Medical Store, National Drug Authority; and health development partners such as the Global Fund country coordinating mechanism, UN Population Fund, UNICEF, among others. The emphasis on working together as one entity to not only develop the document, but also ensure its successful implementation generated immense buy-in, ownership, and stewardship. Stakeholders nominated staff to form sub-committees who were assigned sections to develop with technical assistance from subject matter experts (consultants) and the SSCS technical team.
MDAs and other stakeholders were represented at two Inter-Ministerial Task Force sub-committee writing retreats held in June 2021 and September 2021 to draft content with the assistance of subject matter experts. The one government approach took shape in these meetings with government-led deliberations. Ownership and stewardship of the process through joint brainstorming; common understanding; consensus building; and commitments on the content, structure, and modalities of developing and implementing the roadmap were quite evident. MDAs chaired relevant thematic / chapter sessions, for example, health supply chain resource mobilization and financing by MoFPED; human resources chaired by MoPS; health commodities management, infrastructure, warehousing, and distribution co-chaired by MoH and NMS; and health information systems chaired by Ministry of Information and Communications Technology and National Guidance (MoICT&NG/National Information Technology Authority of Uganda (NITA-U).
At a high-level multisectoral meeting on December 3, 2021, the one-government approach was further illustrated when top MDA leadership came together to enhance inter-sectoral collaboration in the roadmap’s_ _development and implementation. They discussed sectoral roles in harmonizing the roadmap’s planning and budgeting frameworks, and most MDAs committed to successful implementation, which was reiterated at the official roadmap launch.
Following the roadmap launch and MDA commitments, the SSCS Activity team, working closely with the MoH, has been engaging MDAs to incorporate the health supply chain roadmap priorities into their institutional strategic and operational plans.
Background Information:
The SSCS Activity’s technical assistance supports the GoU to improve the health supply chain system to sustain development outcomes by increasing local capacity and providing uninterrupted availability of quality essential medicines and health supplies to improve the health of its target beneficiaries. SSCS aims to promote good governance and accountability throughout the supply chain and support the government as it transitions from donor reliance to effectively plan for and finance the health supply chain through the 10-year roadmap. The 10-year roadmap applies the ‘one-government’ approach to planning and implementation and illustrates short-, medium- and long-term plans for GoU’s supply chain self-reliance over the next 10 years.