On August 07, 2016, Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani approved a critical strategy paper on implementing a pooled procurement mechanism (PPM) for essential medicines and health products. Afghanistan’s Joint Pooled Procurement Committee (JPPC) developed the paper with technical and financial support from the USAID-funded Strengthening Pharmaceutical Systems (SPS) project. The JPPC is comprised of the Office of the President; the Ministries of Public Health, Defense, and Interior; the National Procurement Authority; and the Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan.

Currently, pharmaceutical products are purchased individually by ministries and agencies in the public sector. In the health sector, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) contracted by the government to deliver services in provinces mainly procure medicines in the local market, posing serious concerns about the quality of locally purchased products and the inefficiencies inherent in a patchy procurement mechanism.

On behalf of USAID, the SPS project implemented a PPM from 2005 to early 2016, benefiting about 15 million people in 13 provinces. Comparisons of average time out-of-stock for medicines in primary health care facilities revealed that medicines were more consistently available in facilities supplied by the PPM than those not supplied by the PPM. In addition, the acquisition prices of essential medicines procured through international suppliers under the PPM were only five percent higher, on average, than local market prices. This demonstrates that a PPM can improve availability of quality-assured essential medicines at a reasonable price.

“The central quantification and procurement system supported by USAID’s SPS project delivered drugs of better quality than those we buy in the local market. I recommend MoPH to consider expanding the system to all the provinces,” said Dr. Zemarai Saleh, pharmacy manager of Bakhtar Development Network (BDN).

With technical assistance from SPS, the MoPH will lead the JPPC and continue developing a PPM implementation plan.