Prequalification

Pre-qualified product lists are primarily used by UN organisations to manage their supply chain management choices. It has become an indispensable instrument for any organisation or organisation dealing with the mass purchase of drugs at national or worldwide levels. The WHO prequalification programme supports the enhancement of production capacities by pre-qualifying, evaluating, inspecting and controlling WHO drugs to comply with relevant WHO guidelines and industry codes of practice for product performance, effectiveness and health and safety; by ensuring that WHO guidelines and industry codes of practice are applicable at all stages of the prequalification procedure; and by providing easy and effective means of accessing good qualifying drugs.

WHO, together with UNFPA, has recently started to pre-qualify contraceptives and is growing into other drugs for RH. Coalition and its affiliates were instrumental in the development of the Interagency List of Essential Medicine for Reproductive Health (2006), the WHO Model List of Essential Medicine and the Essential Medicine for Reproductive Health:

Guidelines for their listing on the national lists of medicinal products. 4. At its Bonn General Assembly in October 2006, the coalition achieved a general agreement on the basic rule of procuring only those WHO pre-qualified and those WHO authorised. The Coalition regularly informs about the prequalification of RH drugs through its general assemblies, communications activity and periodic written communications.

Members of the WHO, UNFPA and Patha worked together on two local workshop sessions to familiarise purchasing and regulation authorities with the WHO prequalification programme. During 2008, three pre-qualification training sessions were held by CATH, WHO and UNFPA for cotton producers and major purchasers and dispensers. A scholarship from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support the workshop was awarded to them.

During 2009, the Concept Foundation governmental coalition provided a Contribution from the Innovation Fund to the Concept Foundation to increase public understanding of the WHO prequalification program under the AQAS initiative. During 2010, UNFPA, WHO, JSI and Marie Stopes International organised an inter-agency consultative session in Washington, DC to debate better harmonisation of endocrine disruption purchasing procedures.