Commodity security frameworks for health planning

Abstract

Building functional logistics systems and a healthy supplier base within low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are key ways of providing steady, predictable supplies of health commodities for unpredictable demands for healthcare and health. Efforts to provide secure supplies of health commodities, whenever and wherever they are needed, however cannot ignore questions of whether there exists an external supportive environment in LMICs. Health planners must focus not just on capacities internal to logistics systems but also on external capacities. Internal and external capacities must be considered together and not in isolation. For this reason, a capacity-oriented commodity security framework, applicable to all therapeutic categories, is presented to help health planners in LMICs identify and evaluate the interrelated root causes of unreliable supplies in their respective countries.