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Home > When Coup d'etat Strikes: Ensuring Continuous Availability of Contraceptives at the Community Level in Mali
May 28, 2013
By Dr. Constance Toure, Dr. Suzanne Diarra, Dr. Modibo Diarra, Dr. Yssouf Diallo
Access to family planning methods has been challenging in many parts of Mali – even before
the US had to shut off direct aid to the Malian government.
With funding from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the Systems for
Improved Access to Pharmaceuticals and Services (SIAPS) program, has been supporting
Mali’s Ministry of Health through its Direction de la Pharmacie et des Médicaments (DPM) to
estimate contraceptive needs. The estimates help ensure that proper amounts of
contraceptives can be supplied by technical and donor partners (such as USAID, UNFPA, and
KFW) in the form of donations delivered directly to the Ministry of Health.
But on March 22, 2012, when the Government of Mali was taken over through a coup d’etat,
the US Government suspended its direct aid to the Malian Government—including its
contraceptive procurement activities.
As a result, more women at the community health center level could not access
contraceptives.
The USAID/Mali mission put a contingency plan in place to set up a provisional supply chain
to make contraceptives available through donations made directly to the community health
centers.
Several projects implemented the plan, including: Assistance Technique Nationale Plus (ATN
Plus), Projet Keneya Ciwara II (PKC II), Population Service International (PSI), and the SIAPS
program, led by Management Sciences for Health (MSH).
Coordination meetings were held between USAID and implementing partners to develop the
contingency plan to mitigate contraceptive shortages during the sociopolitical crisis.
As a result of this planning, SIAPS supported the contraceptives needs estimation for the
private and public sectors as well as the creation of a procurement and distribution plan for
the public sector for the six regions in southern Mali. The distribution plan consisted of
stocking the contraceptives purchased by USAID in stores in Bamako. Then the
contraceptives were divided according to population data among the 833 selected community
health centers. The products were transported to health districts where they were stocked in
stores that had been rented for the occasion and from where each health center collected its
stock.
SIAPS employed a quantification method based on morbidity data collected through a review
of epidemiological documents.
The provisional supply chain was successful thanks to the close collaboration among USAID’s
partner projects. The supply chain allowed contraceptives to be made available directly to 833
community health centers in the six regions in southern Mali. Each partner played a decisive
role in the coordination of the supply chain’s implementation. SIAPS’s role was the needs
quantification and the creation of the distribution plan; ATN Plus distributed the products at the
community center level; and PSI was responsible for the storage of the purchased
contraceptives.
The contingency plan guaranteed communities’ continuous accessibility to contraceptives
despite the suspension of family planning commodity procurement activities with the Malian
government. Working together in partnerships, amid the challenges, is helping ensure that
Malians have access to modern contraception.
Dr. Constance Toure, Dr. Modibo Diarra, and Dr. Yssouf Diallo work with SIAPS in Mali. Dr.
Suzanne Diarra works with SIAPS in Arlington, Virginia.
Source URL: http://www.msh.org/news-events/stories/when-coup-detat-strikes-ensuring-continuousavailability-of-contraceptives-at