From October 6-8 2008, civil society organisations (CSOs) from 10 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa met to discuss issues related to access to essential medicines in their respective countries and to map out a strategy on how they could go about advocating and promoting access. Organised by HAI Africa and SATAM with support from Open Society Institute (OSI), the seminar brought together a cross-section of professionals - lawyers, health professionals, administrators, communication experts, and activists working in civil society and non-governmental organizations.

The meeting began by focusing on issues of low availability and stockouts of medicines. One presenter suggested that civil society could help alleviate the documented inefficiencies in national medicine supply chains by taking up the responsibility of monitoring medicines availability; getting involved in the tendering, forecasting, and quantification process; and advocating for better prices for procurement and financing.

Country presentations from Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe revealed some cross cutting issues about the medicines situation. Each country noted that existing problems of stock-outs of essential medicines, a lack of government of accountability, the need for community mobilisation to advocate for better public access and availability of medicines, inadequate funding for medicines sector, and a lack of trained human resources. Other challenges identified included the overstocking which leads to expiry of medicines, and rivalry between government agencies involved in procurement.

Discussing in country groups, the seminar delegates identified areas in which civil society organisations could improve access to medicines in their respective countries. All participants agreed that there was greater need for collaboration with all stakeholders at country and regional level to ensure the success of campaigns to promote access to essential medicines. With the general concession that civil society needed to take action soon, it was agreed that a campaign to eliminate medicine stock-outs should be run at national and regional levels.

OSI committed to make some small grants to the countries wishing to implement campaigns and invited participating organisations to submit funding proposals to access the grant. A major outcome of the meeting was the launch of campaigns on elimination of medicines stock outs in 2009 in at least five of the participating countries.

Click here [1] to access the HAI Africa website; then, click on "Activities" and scroll to "Eastern and Southern Africa CSOs..."

Health Action International (HAI) Africa website [1], March 17 2009.