To improve newborn and child health (NBCH) outcomes, skilled health care workers require quality-assured NBCH medicines and supplies at the point of care. In Mali, the availability of three particular commodities — amoxicillin dispersible tablets, co-packaged oral rehydration salts and zinc, and newborn resuscitation equipment — is limited despite their critical role in newborn and child health.
The USAID Global Health Supply Chain Program-Procurement and Supply Management (GHSC-PSM) project works with the Government of Mali to ensure reliable access to these commodities and in early 2020, the project conducted an assessment to determine which factors affect the availability of NBCH commodities. This brief shares findings from the assessment, including how existing policies, financing, data collection, supply planning and warehousing and distribution practices may affect availability. The brief also shares GHSC-PSM recommendations for ways to address supply chain barriers to availability of NBCH commodities in Mali.
