Leading Voices: Brief Conversations with Our Experts

Welcome to Leading Voices, a series of short video conversations with MSH experts on a range of public health topics—from primary health care to supply chain management and more.

Primary Health Care

Colin Gilmartin, Principal Technical Advisor

Health Care Financing

How can low- and middle-income countries maximize the return on investment of public health funding? Colin Gilmartin, MSH’s Principal Technical Advisor for Health Care Financing, discusses how Ministries of Health and their partners in six countries are successfully using MSH’s new Primary Health Care Costing Analysis and Planning Tool (PHC-CAP Tool) with the goal of ensuring that adequate funding is available for strengthening and sustaining quality primary health care services. 

Supply Chain Management

Stephanie Xueref

Supply Chain Expert

While supply chains were hit hard during the pandemic, the resulting disruptions validated many promising practices that already were underway before COVID-19 struck, including initiatives to fully digitize systems and leverage the private sector to reach underserved communities. In this short video, MSH supply chain expert Stephanie Xueref reflects on lessons learned from the pandemic, what supply chain improvement efforts in Uganda and Ukraine can teach us, and factors donors and governments must consider when developing national supply chain strategies. 

Rebecca Kohler, Chief of Party

Safe, Affordable, and Effective Medicines (SAFEMed) for Ukrainians

Since 2017, the Safe, Affordable, and Effective Medicines (SAFEMed) for Ukrainians Activity—funded by USAID and implemented by MSH—has partnered with the Ministry of Health to streamline the governance and management of the pharmaceutical supply chain to ensure reliable and affordable access to lifesaving medicines, particularly to fight HIV and TB. Localization has been at the heart of this alliance, working with the government and a local logistics company to ensure treatments make it to service delivery sites. SAFEMed’s Chief of Party, Rebecca Kohler, discusses lessons learned as the program enters its sixth year.

Gashaw Shiferaw, Principal Technical Advisor

Supply Chain Management, USAID’s Medicines, Technologies and Pharmaceutical Services (MTaPS) Program, led by MSH.

What steps should countries take to improve their health supply chains? In this short video, MSH supply chain management expert Gashaw Shiferaw explains what makes supply chains flexible and resilient, how the private sector can play a unique role, and why digital visibility of the supply chain is so critical.

René Berger, MSH Technical Director and Practice Lead

Pharmaceutical, Health Technologies and Supply Chain Systems

Hear Management Sciences for Health supply chain systems expert René Berger discuss strategies to promote greater availability of HIV medicines by streamlining the supply chain. Berger reviews challenges and opportunities to improve access, the potential for the private sector to partner with governments, and how interaction among major donors might be improved.