A Namibian Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS) delegation visited UNFPA Procurement Service Branch (PSB) in Copenhagen, Denmark, to gain a first-hand understanding of UNFPA procurement practices.
The delegation was led by the Permanent Secretary, Dr. Andreas Mwoombola, accompanied by UNFPA Namibia Country Representative, Dennia Gayle, and Loide Amkongo, Programme Specialist. The MoHSS has been implementing reproductive health programmes as part of the overall government plan to eradicate poverty by ensuring families and individuals can decide freely when and how many children to have, through the provision of modern contraceptive methods.
UNFPA, as the lead United Nations agency in the global effort to provide voluntary family planning information, services and supplies, collaborates with the Government of Namibia in its effort to ensure reliable, safe, quality and cost-effect reproductive health commodities.
As a result, a high level learning mission was undertaken to PSB to strengthen MoHSS procurement processes, particularly to understand how the Third Party procurement procedure works and the cost-benefit that this partnership could offer. This became crucial after the President of Namibia called on Ministries to undertake a revision of their budgets and implement more cost-effective business practices.
Value for money services
The Chief of PSB, Eric Dupont, stressed the importance of collaboration and urged the visiting team to find synergy with PSB as it offers services that ensure best value for money, fairness, integrity and transparency, based on partnership experiences with vendors from all over the world.
The Namibia Government expressed its dedication to ensure the supply of safe, efficacious and cost-effective reproductive health commodities and it’s commitment to prudent financial management, accountability, effective governance and service delivery as part of its National Harambee Prosperity Plan.
Ensuring universal access to reproductive health has been at the heart of UNFPA’s work since the beginning of its operations in 1969. Through its Family Planning Strategy 2012-2020, UNFPA committed to strengthening the support provided to countries to achieve universal access to rights-based family planning.
The mission presented a valuable opportunity for collaboration with the MoHSS of Namibia. There is an urgent need to create a stronger niche for and synergy in the following areas:
1. Strengthening procurement planning and quantification;
2. Strengthening warehouse and logistics/logistical systems;
3. Capacity development of staff and the system in general, including analysing the system requirements;
4. Increasing efficiency and effectiveness of the international bidding processes conducted by the government;
5. Promotion of condoms, especially from a programme aspect;
6. Outsourcing procurement services to UNFPA;
7. Promotion of generic products and product registration.