Kenya Medical Supplies Authority : A Case Study of the Ongoing Transition from an Ungainly Bureaucracy to a Competitive and Customer-Focused Medical Logistics Organization

Yadav, Prashant

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: BACKBONE;    BIDDING;    BUSINESS MODEL;    CAPABILITIES;    CAPITAL INVESTMENTS;   

RP-ID  :  91864

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The Kenya Medical Supplies Authority(KEMSA) is a state-owned health logistics service companywith the core mandate to procure, warehouse and distributehealthcare commodities to public sector health facilitiesand other public sector customers. Since the inception ofKEMSA in 2000 there have been multiple projects andinitiatives to improve the performance of KEMSA. However,despite these efforts, and until recently KEMSA hadstruggled to effectively demonstrate any sustainedimprovements in performance. In the last 3-4 years, KEMSAunder its new leadership has shown sustained improvements inperformance, accountability and transparency. In the lastyear, the Government of Kenya has embarked on the devolutionof health financing to the counties to ensure that servicesare delivered effectively and efficiently to communities.The devolution has resulted in a significant change in theway KEMSA receives monies for carrying out its activities.Of particular relevance is that the devolution has led toordering and payment for drugs and health commodities bycounties. This required KEMSA to reconfigure its businessmodel to serve the 47 counties in Kenya as its customers.The World Bank, through its Health Sector Support Project(HSSP), capitalized KEMSA in order to meet working capitalneeds that would arise under the new devolved system offinancing. Competitive pressures arising from devolution andthe new business model, a new management structure withstrong leadership and governance, technical support fromdevelopment partners such as the World Bank and UnitedStates Agency for International Development (USAID), andgreater flexibilities arising from KEMSA s change of statusto a public authority together are converging to create a newKEMSA. It is an opportune time to study the state ofreforms at KEMSA, highlight the successes, and develop ideasfor meeting the challenges ahead. The ongoing transformationof KEMSA from a bureaucratic state-run medicines supplyagency to a more independent and competitive medicallogistics authority is an important milestone and itpresents opportunities for other countries to learn from thesuccesses and failures at KEMSA.