Building the national health supply chain workforce through Guinea’s universities

In April 2024, following close collaboration with the USAID Global Health Supply Chain Program-Procurement and Supply Management (GHSC-PSM) project and other health supply chain stakeholders, a local private university, La Source, provided health supply chain management training to 50 private sector pharmacists. This training illustrates the capacity of the university to independently provide specialized training in supply chain management of health products. This demonstration of technical independence follows support from GHSC-PSM to integrate the training modules into the university curriculum, identify and train resident trainers, and organize and execute the training. The goal of this collaborative effort is to build and sustain the capacity of existing and potential managers of Guinea’s national health supply chain system. The training at La Source is one element of a larger partnership between GHSC-PSM and three national universities— Université Gamal Abdel Nasser de Conakry (UGANC), Université Kofi Annan de Guinée (UKAG) and La Source— to train 340 pharmacy students across these universities. La Source in particular took actions toward sustainability by integrating the training modules into the university’s formal pharmacy curriculum and creating a specialized cohort of existing and potential supply chain managers. 

Following the training, students received certificates of completion. Expressing satisfaction about the capacity of the national system to provide and sustain the skills required by Guinea’s health supply chain workforce, USAID/Guinea representative Dr. Lamin Bangoura stated, “USAID seeks to continuously improve the health care experience in Guinea through efforts like those of the GHSC-PSM project and la Source, through transformative supply chain solutions.” 

On behalf of the university, la Source’s Dean of Biomedical Sciences voiced appreciation for this support from USAID and GHSC-PSM, and expressed the determination of the university to continuously collaborate so that together with partners, universities can sustain human capacity development in the national supply chain system. 

La Source’s Dean of Biomedical Sciences delivers certificate of appreciation to the USAID/Guinea representative.

One trainee, private pharmacist Dr. Jean Pierre Kamano, thanked USAID and other stakeholders that supported the process “It is important to understand the complete circuit of health products, from information to logistics. Now we know what to do to avoid not only overstock but also shortages of medicines. This will certainly allow us to save lives.”