20 Essential Resources on Commodity Security and Supply Chains

Why we created this collection

Are you a technical assistance provider, reproductive health advisor, or country government officer trying to increase the availability of family planning products?

Are you trying to identify where to target interventions or find additional financing to create a stronger supply chain?

Do you need data, evidence, or indicators for your advocacy efforts to create more support for Reproductive Health Commodity Security (RHCS)?

If you are facing similar challenges, these resources are for you.

Several factors are needed for a health system to provide a steady, reliable source of contraceptives. Government commitment is necessary to set appropriate policies along with sufficient funding to procure the correct amount of product, train health workers to counsel and dispense, and have a well-functioning supply chain. Managing and operating a resilient supply chain will facilitate the ability for clients to choose a variety of methods, for governments and program managers to have the logistics data for monitoring and evaluation, to quantify accurately, and to track health system progress.

How we chose the resources

We selected resources that are go-to sources of information from organizations working towards the same goals. Resources range from practical guides, online platforms and tools, comprehensive assessments, dashboards, reports, and briefs.

What is included in this collection?

The collection is organized around the following topics:

Data visibility: This platform for family planning supplies provides comprehensive insight into global historical and current contraceptive shipments.

Financing: These two resources provide managers and governments with guidance and country examples on financing challenges and options, and how to track them.

Implementation Tools: These tools guide users on quantification of health commodities, how to expand method choice, and using a total market approach to improve contraceptive accessibility. It also includes tools to identify resources to improve and reinforce supply chain staff capacity and estimate supply chain costs based on projected contraceptive growth.

Measurement and Evaluation: The set includes core family planning and RHCS indicators for country, regional and global level stakeholders to measure RHCS progress as well as insight into the impact of contraceptive investments and the impact of changes in contraceptive supply.

Resiliency: This group of resources provide users with lessons learned, scenarios, and recommendations to ensure supply chains are prepared for a variety of events, and how to recover and improve from them.

Supply Chain: Supply chain managers will find these resources helpful to operate and improve upon the system’s many vital functions from basic supply chain principles, assessment tools, outsourcing, and upgrading the LMIS.

Each entry features a short summary on the resource and a statement on why we believe it’s essential. We hope you enjoy the collection and find it informative.