Seeing clearly through the storm
Rose Chikumbe
On the evening that Rose Chikumbe speaks with the RHSC, Cyclone Freddy is pelting Malawi with relentless rains and mudslides; the storm will go on to displace tens of thousands of people and worsen a cholera outbreak in the country. “Yes, it is very bad,” admits Ms. Chikumbe, Logistics Officer at the Reproductive Health Department in Malawi’s Ministry of Health (MoH). “But this situation is not new in Malawi,” she says.
Stockouts averted
In 2019, when Cyclone Idai hit neighboring Mozambique, it destroyed $1.3 billion worth of infrastructure, claiming 1,300 lives. 86,000 tons of commodities were stranded, including contraceptive supplies. Neighboring Malawi faced a crisis as contraceptive commodities remained stuck at a Mozambican port ravaged by Idai. Unwanted pregnancies, maternal deaths, and unsafe abortions threatened to skyrocket.
But the VAN changed the ending of that story — the VAN is global network connecting people and data to revolutionize decision-making in reproductive health supply chains. In the case of Malawi, the VAN provided crucial data with which the health ministry could distribute stock from facilities that could spare them, to facilities threatened by looming stockouts, thereby avoiding empty shelves.
Malawi: a model member
Malawi is a pioneering member of the VAN, and Ms. Chikumbe is its proud and untiring Ambassador. At the International Conference of Family Planning in Pattaya last year, she presented a popular poster session in which she shared groundbreaking impacts in Malawi last year: in 2022 alone, the VAN provided the evidence that led to $450K of new orders, generating nearly 250K total CYPs, or couple years of (contraceptive) protection.
The secret of the VAN’s impact in Malawi is its extended end-to-end visibility afforded by the VAN’s connection to Malawi’s electronic logistics management information system (eLMIS). “Imagine stakeholders sitting in their own offices, logging in, and being to get real time data showing them what is available in the Central Medical Stores,” she says. “And imagine getting data not just on family planning commodities but for other medicines,” she adds, referring to the possibility of Malawi’s VAN extending beyond reproductive health supplies one day.
Ms. Chikumbe sees the VAN as the answer to the country’s supply chain visibility issues. But there was a time when she was reluctant to become involved with the network. “When the VAN team first visited Malawi from the United States, I was invited to attend the training, but I turned it down, not once but twice!” she remembers. “I just didn’t think it was relevant for me. But when they invited me the third time, I realized they were keen to have me there, possibly because of my specialist training in supply chain management.”
She assessed the training session using her unique perspective as a former pharmacist and veteran logistician, and she quickly understood the VAN’s terrific potential. She began developing and conducting training sessions for VAN stakeholders and she sees how crucial it is for stakeholders to be trained continually in using the VAN. “But training takes money — it is a huge investment,” she says. “And that is why I am committed to sourcing funding for training.”
Training is key
Indeed, when USAID approached her about what challenges she faced, she was candid. “I told them that I might be a VAN Ambassador by name, but that without adequate funding to train as many VAN users as possible, I am powerless,” she says. That conversation resulted in her receiving $10K from USAID to conduct training. But this is not the time to slow down and rest on her laurels, she says with some urgency. “The need for training — especially South-South support — is huge. Countries need to see what works in their region, and they need to aspire to be like their successful neighbors,” she insists.
An early ambition, an ongoing dream
As a young woman finishing school, Ms. Chikumbe had very specific aspirations. She had dreamed of becoming either a doctor or a teacher, always “wanting to apply her skills to an area of real need”. She acknowledges that the work she does with the VAN today checks both the healthcare and education boxes and she is happily aware that she didn’t stray far from her childhood dreams.
“If I can somehow support linkages between all the critical healthcare data systems in my country,” Ms. Chikumbe says. “If the VAN would someday include more medical commodities. If every facility at district level could have access to national and global data. If I could somehow help achieve this. This is my dream. This is what I would have achieved for my country.”
