Malawi has periodically experienced low or dwindling government financing of vaccines and nutrition supplies. Given documented fiscal space for health challenges for Malawi, sustaining and improving the coverages of immunization and nutrition interventions directly related to supplies require better understanding of bottlenecks at the budget planning, execution and evaluation stages. UNICEF undertook two studies to understand public financial management bottlenecks and identify solutions.
The first study on Immunization and Nutrition Supplies Budget Process provides an overview of the National, Immunization and Nutrition policy and planning mechanism and institution arrangements, and identified bottlenecks in the immunization and nutrition supplies budget process and potential solutions to address them.
The second study on Strengthening costing and planning for vaccines in Malawi followed up on the recommendations of the first study. A costing tool and standard operating procedure for quantification, forecasting and budgeting of vaccine procurement was developed. The Department of Planning and Population Development and the Expanded Programme of Immunisation staff were trained in utilizing the costing tool. The team also undertook a feasibility assessment of the existing Stock Management Tool for its possible integration into a more robust, complete, integrated, and automated system. Advocacy material were developed to support the MOH in requesting changes to the central Integrated Financial Management Information System to allow on-time visible reporting of the vaccine commitments and expenditures.
Any organization or individual working in the field of immunization economics can submit findings, opportunities, calls to action, or other relevant work below to be shared with our community.