In a world of limited resources, coordination between donors is important in order to reduce waste. This is especially true for donors who procure commodities such as contraceptives, drugs or vaccines. Failure to coordinate can lead to oversupply, under supply, stock-out, or brand proliferation.
The paper will help to answer the following questions about donor coordination:
Purpose: What is donor coordination? Why coordinate? Who should coordinate?
Players: What are some of the key donors' policies and practices? What are some of the key host governments' policies and practices?
Mechanisms: How do programs coordinate? Which mechanisms work? How do we know that they work?
Using examples from ten countries, this paper explores mechanisms being used by donors, governments and cooperating agencies to coordinate, citing the perceived advantages and constraints of different mechanisms used when securing commodities. It will review mechanisms such as:
Meetings - from biweekly formal planning meetings (Zambia) through regional seminars (Peru)
Formal Coordinators - from single "lead agencies" among the collaborating agencies (Nepal) to new third-party organizations mandated to coordinate inputs (Philippines)
Sharing Documents - from sharing copies of trip reports (all) to using e-mail distribution lists to circulate frequent meeting minutes (Zambia)
Joint Funding - from "co-sponsoring" (Nicaragua), to the creation of "basket funds" (Ghana)
The paper shows that these coordination efforts are often constrained by politics, personnel/leadership and limitations of the mechanism itself and that coordination challenges are best met by a combination of mechanisms.
Learning Objectives: At the end of the session, participants will be able to: (1) Describe donor coordination and its relevance to program implementation (2) List mechanisms used by donors, collaborating agencies and governments to coordinate procurement, management and distribution of public health commodities (3) Assess the applicability of different donor coordination mechanisms to their own programs
Keywords: International, Coordination
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: I am an employee of John Snow, Inc. Some of the examples of
donor coordination mechanisms will be drawn
from experience of project staff as well as from a survey
of donors and host country government institutions.