BURLINGTON, Vt. — The U.S. Agency for International Development’s multibillion-dollar global health supply chain project, which coordinates the delivery of life-saving health commodities to dozens of countries, has shown significant improvement in its reported targets after significant challenges during startup, according to a mid-term review of the project made public last month and posted to Chemonics International’s website on May 12.
The review also noted that the supply chain is still more reactive than strategic, has dedicated unusually small amounts of resources to evaluation, and relies on a wide range of complicated indicators that are not always understood by the project’s USAID counterparts.
“After an unprecedented, overly rapid transition from long-standing contractors, and a difficult start-up in the public eye, [the Global Health Supply Chain — Procurement Supply Management project] is credited with a strong comeback. The project is meeting and sustaining key targets of critical interest to USAID over this first half of the project,” including those related to on-time delivery and cost, the review found.