Building Sustainable Supply Chains to Close the Health Equity Gap
Thursday, April 2, 2026 – 16:17pm
Resilient supply chains are central to equitable healthcare. They are the link between scientific innovation and patient access, ensuring medicines and vaccines reach health facilities reliably and on time. This challenge was at the heart of discussions at the Global Health Supply Chain Summit, which convened in Kigali, Rwanda, where government leaders from across Africa examined what it takes to build systems that can be sustainable while responding to growing health needs.
Pfizer’s Accord for a Healthier World was created to help translate these conversations into practical action. By aiming to close the health equity gap for 1.2 billion people across 45 lower-income countries, the Accord combines expanded access to medicines with investments in the systems and people responsible for delivering care. The approach reflects a growing recognition that access gaps are rarely caused by product shortages alone, but by constraints across health systems including workforce capability.
Health supply chains are complex ecosystems of products, processes, and people. When workforce capacity is limited—particularly beyond central levels—inefficiencies compound quickly. At the summit, leaders pointed to persistent challenges such as long lead times and stock imbalances, often rooted in skills gaps and uneven professional coverage across the system.
Bernard Asamany, Deputy Director at Ghana’s Ministry of Health and Head of Central Medical Stores, y emphasized that strengthening the supply chain workforce is foundational to system performance. Reflecting on Ghana’s participation in the Accord Supply Chain Capability Building Program, he noted that targeted training and peer learning had tangible effects: managers are now “more confident and competent in their roles,” with improved decision-making in areas such as demand planning, inventory management, and distribution. Asamany observed that these gains in capability have contributed to reductions in stockouts, overstocking, and lead times in some institutions, while strengthening the system’s overall resilience to shocks and operational pressures.
This experience underscores an important lesson: improvements in availability and speed are not simply logistical wins, but indicators of stronger leadership and professional practice within the system. By focusing on real-time learning, exposure to best practices, and practical problem-solving, workforce development initiatives can help translate theory into practical positive improvements in the supply chains.
Similar dynamics are visible in other settings. The Rwanda Medical Supply reported measurable improvements following targeted workforce training, citing stronger inventory accuracy and product integrity at the warehouse level. Product handling errors declined by more than 25 percent, while expiry rates in key therapeutic classes fell by 30–40 percent—demonstrating how practical, embedded training can translate directly into more reliable and efficient access to essential medicines.
In Ghana, expanded confidence in quality assurance and planning has reinforced trust in the integrity and origin of health products, supporting more effective use of limited resources.
Operational gains—such as shorter delivery timelines and improved product availability—remain critical. As Evans Ofori-Twum Barimah of Ghana’s Ministry of Health noted, faster clearance and delivery processes have significantly reduced delays to health facilities. Yet these improvements are most durable when they rest on capable teams with the authority and skills to manage complexity.
The discussions in Kigali reinforced a shared conclusion: closing the health equity gap requires more than access to health products. It demands long-term collaboration between governments, global health organizations, and the private sector to build systems that are led and sustained by skilled professionals.
By investing in people alongside processes, partnerships can help ensure that supply chains are not only faster, but stronger—and better equipped to deliver quality health care where it is needed most.
Participants at the Accord session during the 2025 Global Health Supply Chain Summit in Kigali, Rwanda.