Building supply chain talent for Africa

Chaotic supply chains are negatively impacting health, development and economic outcomes in Africa, according to Nigeria-based supply chain transformation expert Azuka Okeke, who is overseeing powerful healthcare supply chain interventions around the continent.

In a presentation at the recent SAPICS Spring Conference in Johannesburg, Okeke, who is the Regional Director of the Africa Resource Centre (ARC), highlighted the strides being made in Nigeria to professionalize supply chain management. She outlined lessons that can be learned from the successful public health and private sector collaboration that is improving healthcare delivery in Nigeria. The inaugural Spring Conference for supply chain professionals was hosted by SAPICS, The Professional Body for Supply Chain Management.

A key focus of Nigeria’s supply chain transformation has been building in-country supply chain talent, Okeke revealed. “The shortage of skilled supply chain personnel has been identified as a key driver of logistics under-performance in countries. A functional supply chain ensures that health facilities are always stocked above a certain minimum level, ensuring the availability of commodities. Since logistics costs represent 20 to 40 percent of commodity costs, it follows that efficient local supply chain management can help to achieve a significant reduction in commodity prices, too. If less money must go out of Africa to design, plan and implement healthcare supply chains, there will be more left to get medicines to the last mile.”

To this end, the Africa Resource Centre (ARC) has spearheaded an integrated centre of excellence model for supply chain and logistics management, to help build more efficient and effective supply chain systems in Nigeria and across Africa. ARC, an initiative of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is an independent strategic advisor, promoting collaboration with the aim of improving the availability of medicines and health products in Africa.

“Our model encompasses short, medium, and long-term elements to rapidly develop supply chain management and logistics expertise in Nigeria and beyond,” Okeke expanded. “Our key objectives are to rapidly strengthen and scale-up in-country capacity, skills and expertise to meet local and regional needs, and to leverage and contribute to the global network focused on advancing supply chain excellence.” Already well underway and contributing to improved healthcare outcomes in Nigeria is the capacity-building ARC Academy, which represents the first part of ARC’s strategy. “ARC Academy has to date enrolled more than 120 participants from government, private sector and academia with several participants now equipped with industry leading certifications from the International Supply Chain Education Alliance (ISCEA) and other bodies. Our medium-term strategy supports in-country institutions to develop industry-aligned supply chain and logistics management degree and certificate programmes. Eight institutions including six universities are supported to date,” Okeke revealed.