With a growing middle class, early-stage frontier markets, enormous demographic advantages, and its ongoing digital transformation, Africa continues to grow in both economic and geopolitical importance. In “Demystifying Africa’s Risk Perception Premium,” Paul Clyde and co-authors make the case for a stronger U.S.- Africa trade and investment relationship, one that changes the narrative around doing business on the continent.
WDI, in a second phase of support to the SWEDD initiative, drafted a report summarizing the strengths, weaknesses and lessons learned during the execution of the first phase of the initiative’s supply chain activities. The report captured the perspective of stakeholders at all levels of implementation – from donor organizations to independent consultants at the country level. The lessons learned from the execution of the SWEDD supply chain activities were shared with teams at the Global Fund encouraging greater efficacy and efficiency of future, similar country engagements.
The objective of this project was to support the six countries included in the Sahel Women’s Empowerment and Demographic Dividend (SWEDD) initiative to develop technically sound plans for investments to be made in their health supply chains. The SWEDD initiative began as a response to a lack of access to reproductive, child, and maternal health services in the countries of the Sahel region of Africa.
The supply chain component of this initiative focuses on investments in the logistics systems which allow the products needed for reproductive, child, and maternal health services to be made available. WDI provided supply chain expertise to country representatives during the SWEDD supply chain launch meeting, ran in-country workshops alongside local partners to identify health supply chain investment opportunities, and reviewed the final investment plans for each country.
Additionally, WDI developed a report summarizing the strengths, weaknesses, and lessons learned during the execution of the initial phases of SWEDD supply chain activities. As a result of the assistance provided by WDI and other partners, the investment plans for all six SWEDD countries were approved by the World Bank. Furthermore, the lessons learned from the execution of the SWEDD supply chain activities were shared with teams at the Global Fund, encouraging greater efficacy and efficiency of future, similar country engagements.