Global Presence

The USAID-funded program, Securing Ugandans' Right for Essential Medicines (Uganda SURE) aims to ensure that the people of Uganda have access to adequate quantities of good quality essential medicines and health supplies by strengthening the national pharmaceutical supply system.

To achieve this goal, SURE's objectives are to—

• Improve Uganda's policy, legal, and regulatory framework to produce pharmaceutical supply chain stability and sustainability
• Improve capacity and performance of central government entities, especially the National Medical Stores, to carry out their supply chain management responsibilities
• Improve capacity and performance of districts, health subdistricts, and implementing partners in their supply chain management roles

The first step will be to conduct an options analysis to identify policy and finance reforms as well as supply chain improvements needed to make the pharmaceutical system more effective and efficient. The options analysis will define the specific changes needed to remove roadblocks, determine the feasibility of proposed changes, and provide the basis to obtain necessary commitments to change from stakeholders.

SURE will also work on integrating Uganda's currently fragmented supply chain system and establish a pharmaceutical management information system that provides full transparency to minimize medicine stock-outs and waste.

At the national and local levels, SURE will focus its capacity building efforts on quantification and procurement, warehousing, distribution, financial management, and using management information systems, as well as on organizational management and strategic planning for senior managers.

SURE will base its capacity building process on MSH's Monitoring-Training-Planning (MTP) approach that strengthens human resource capacity by giving local staff members the skills and tools to identify, analyze, and tackle problems using existing resources.

Performance-based incentive programs and a facility accreditation scheme will reinforce capacity-building efforts and encourage not only individuals, but also organizations to improve pharmaceutical and financial management practices at all levels.

The SURE team consists of MSH with its partners, Euro Health Group, Fuel Group/Pharmaceutical Healthcare Distributors, and Makerere University and the Infectious Disease Institute.