LEARN Alliances & Success Stories
Senselet Alliance
Ongoing project
It is widely acknowledged that inefficiencies in healthcare supply chains are a significant challenge across low- and middle-income contexts, causing delays, shortages, and an increase in cost of medical supplies. This disrupts the provision of effective care and aggravates the disease burden for patients with Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) – particularly when living in rural areas or settings impacted by a humanitarian crisis. With an aim to strengthen national NCD responses and improve the reliability of healthcare supply chains across Africa, an Alliance was formed in 2020 consisting of World Diabetes Foundation (WDF), Novo Nordisk A/S (NN) and LEARN Logistics by Kühne Foundation (KF-LEARN). In working towards realizing this goal, the alliance initiates joint projects to enhance and strengthen the capacities of people working within Healthcare Supply Chain Management (HSCM) currently in East-Africa.
In summary, the alliance envisions to build health system resilience across Sub-Saharan Africa by strengthening HSCM capacities within both public and humanitarian organizations that handle a pharmaceutical supply chain for NCD medicines. The increased capacity shall sustainably bridge gaps in the provision of NCD medicines that continue to prevail across fragile contexts and humanitarian settings in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Senselet Alliance is a very good example for the Donor-Alliance Funding Model, in which numerous donors contribute to funding and likewise to the implementation in cooperation with local partners. The strong strategic and operational engagement of the parties ensure a strong impact in the countries and a very favorable cost-benefit ratio.
Senselet Ethiopia
Ethiopia was selected as the first country for the alliance to engage in due to a request from the Addis Ababa University as well as the activities each alliance party had in Ethiopia at the time. The Senselet project was approved and launched in 2021 based on a close partnership with the School of Pharmacy at Addis Ababa University, who has since obtained full ownership of the project under the endorsement of national authorities and stakeholders, including the Ethiopia Pharmaceutical Supply Service agency (EPSS) and the Ethiopian Ministry of Health. Overall, the project is entirely aligned with the public national health care supply chain system and NCD strategy plans of the Ethiopian authorities. Further, academic programs and training modules are anchored in Addis Ababa University and other national educational training institutions.
The project is built around three main objectives, that cover the enhancement of academic and institutional capacity respectively as well as flagship project interventions.
- Academic capacity is built through the strengthening of PhD and Master programs within healthcare supply chain management (HSCM) at Addis Ababa University.
- Institutional capacity is built through module development within a ‘Continuous Professional Development’ (CPD) modality, which was established by the Ministry of Health to ensure that staff, who already work within the public healthcare system and who hold an academic degree will acquire continuous re-training and career development opportunities. In addition to upskilling the academic workforce, the project encompasses non-academic training (vocational/TVET training) to ensure that all levels of the healthcare supply chain in the country are addressed and strengthened. This includes training within warehouse management, transportation etc.
- To catalyze actual supply chain outputs, a series of practical workstreams (Flagship project interventions) will be implemented continuously, whilst integrating outputs from the academic and institutional capacity building. Focus will be on concrete public healthcare supply chain challenges with emphasis on different response situations and outreach.
Senselet Tanzania
Following the success of the project in Ethiopia, the alliance has expressed its wish to engage in new HSCM capacity building projects in Sub-Saharan Africa. The parties intend to establish a strategic program that will provide a framework for and support the ambition of rapidly scaling to new countries as well as within existing project countries. The strategic program will build on learnings from the project in Ethiopia and utilize the unique competencies of each organization in the alliance. As a result, Tanzania has been identified as suitable second project country, as the donors have already prolonged engagements with health authorities and stakeholders in the country. The objective of the potential collaboration between the involved Tanzanian and international stakeholders is to provide locally endorsed and managed solutions to jointly identified real-life challenges in the Tanzanian health supply chain network. The approach shall include very specific and measurable activities that once established and proven to be impactful, can afterwards be scaled up within the Tanzanian heath supply system in a sustainable manner. As of September 2024, the second Senselet Project is projected to begin in the first quarter of 2025.