NGOs and access to medicines in Tanzania

Posted on 31 March 2009

What is the role of NGOs in helping poor people to access medicines? Research carried out in Tanzania revealed an interesting picture.

Summary Research Findings

• In Tanzanian rural areas, exclusion for inability to pay and purchase of part-doses of medicines from unregulated drug shops is widespread; NGO facilities charge medicines prices that are not lower than shops despite lower wholesale buying prices but display somewhat better dispensing practice; solutions require moves towards access to essential medicines without charge at point of use.
• Rural consumers of medicines lack information about their appropriate use; regulation of shops and reliance on dispensers to provide information is insufficient; non-governmental and civil society organisations are needed to spread information and campaign for consumer rights.
• Top Indian pharmaceutical exporters lack interest in the African medicines market, while local manufacturers are key to sustaining rural medicines access in Tanzania; local manufacturing in African can and should be developed taking advantage of TRIPS concessions for least developed countries before 2016.
• NGOs have played a major role in shaping the market in international wholesaling of essential medicines; that role is now under threat; solutions include African-based NGO wholesalers supplying the local NGO sector.
• In public action for global health, commercial actors are increasingly involved in framing and influencing policy measures for access to pharmaceuticals; other NGPA actors need to move from identifying key issues to shaping alternative solutions on the basis of common health policy interests between Northern and Southern actors concerned with medicines access.