Dear IAPHL Members,
Well COVID has really affected our discussions on the listserv! Fewer and fewer people are posting their ideas and questions. As a community of practice, we are stronger when members are sharing their views, supply chain concerns, and ideas for addressing challenges. I hope that more members will begin to share with the community. Whether you are starting your career in health supply chain or have been working in this area for years, we need to hear from you.
I hope that you took some time to read the summary of the findings from the Human Centered Design Member Assessment. Please feel free to comment on the listserv or to write the secretariat at iaphl@jsi.com.
We have had a presentation from the USAID funded assessment team. Some of the findings are very similar to the Human Centered Design one and some findings are very different. There will be a presentation of the findings and recommendations at the next Advisory Group meeting. The secretariat has not yet seen the report. The issue of low level of submissions on the listserv was highly noted to the extent that this assessment team referred to IAPHL as a “community of interest.”
As always, we are open to hearing about good ideas for webinars that will support the members. I believe the webinar in September on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Health Supply Chain, moderated by a chapter leader from Tanzania was quite interesting. If you missed it, you can find it on the IAPHL website. We now have volunteers from four different countries to be panelists for a webinar on the View below the National Level. We will be meeting in the coming weeks to plan for the webinar. Do you have any questions that you think we should ask these panelists? Please let us know what they are.
IAPHL continues to work with other organizations/associations that have similar objectives. Recently we signed a MOU with People that Deliver (PtD) and the Humanitarian Logistics Association (HLA). We hope to bring our resources together to address health supply chain issues in humanitarian settings. We also have an agreement with the African Logisticians Associations Federation (ALAF), whose French name is Fédération Africaine Des Associations De Logisticiens (FAAL), which has representation all over Africa. IAPHL will work closely with ALAF in numerous countries to integrate our activities, with IAPHL focusing on health logistics. We see ALAF’s support as very important as we move to have new country chapters open and as we strive to re-energize others. In the past month, we have seen that IAPHL will have new chapters in the Democratic Republic of Congo and its neighbor, the Republic of Congo. Both countries are receiving valuable support from ALAF.
Please stay safe.
All the best,
Walter Proper, IAPHL Executive Director