06 October 2023
Capacity building and experience sharing meeting
Action plan
06 October 2023
Work package no.5: Improving international and regional cooperation around identifying and combating trafficking of substandard and falsified medical products.
A regional capacity building and experience sharing meeting was held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 2-6 October 2023. National and international legal and pharmaceutical experts were invited to take part in intense training, working and discussion sessions on the various tools developed under MEDISAFE and on the project’s outlook.
Alongside the 24 national legal and pharmaceutical experts and the nine international experts, the five-day meeting provided a rare opportunity for a large number of project stakeholders to meet. The Regional Global Health Advisor from the French embassy in Kenya, members of the consortium (CHMP, APROPHISP and REMED), key international organizations (UNODC, AUDA-NEPAD, UNICRI and OSA-UE), the EU regional cooperation agent for combatting crime, and the project team were present.
The first part of the programme focused on training national experts on the strategic tools developed under the project to support countries in the fight against substandard and falsified medical products (SFMP). These included the supply chain security assessment and implementation guide1, the SFMP communications strategy, the Standard Operating Procedures on the identification and control of SFMP for the law enforcement sector and national medicines regulatory authorities, and the Reference Manual on Legislation on SFMP2.
Working sessions were then held to review and update the national SFMP action plans. The event closed with an opportunity for discussion around the experiences and skills gained during the MEDISAFE project, followed by discussions with all participants to gather ideas and contributions relating to developing a project proposal for MEDISAFE phase 2.0.
The different sessions provided a great platform for brainstorming and sharing best practices. The rich discussions were further testament to the substantial achievements of the project at regional and national levels to address SFMP.
1 The MEDISAFE National Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Security Guide