The year started with a launch in London in May 2008, and today multi-stakeholder forums are in place in all seven countries participating in the pilot phase of MeTA – Ghana, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Peru, the Philippines, Uganda and Zambia. Representatives from government, the business sector and civil society are for the first time sitting round the same table to find new ways to make medicines more accessible to the people who need them most. At the heart of MeTA is the need to generate good quality and robust information about the medicines sector. This is difficult in competitive environments with multiple and conflicting interest. Stakeholders in MeTA may come from different backgrounds and have different interests, but they all share the same goal: to make good quality essential medicines available to poor people at an affordable price.

The MeTA Annual Review 2008-2009 looks at the achievements made in the first year by each country, some of the key lessons learnt at country and international level, and highlights perspectives from MeTA stakeholders. Some key lessons learnt at country level include:

• Commitment of stakeholders is key. If you don’t have committed people, the process will fail.
• Making sure the right people are that table is critical and it takes time.
• Some problems in the medicine supply chain require tough political action to solve. Time and trust is needed to do so.

Starting work on less controversial issues is key. Stakeholder perspectives are highlighted. “One of the best things that happened to us is to bring together all these stakeholders round the table. Now we can transparently and openly agree to disagree, or agree to agree on certain points” said Kenneth Hartigan-Go, Executive Director of the Zeullig Family Foundation, and member of the MeTA Council in the Philippines.

“My interest in MeTA – in fact the interest of the industry – is to actually make all of our information available. There is a certain perception that the local industry produces sub-standard drugs. I think it would be good that transparency comes up around this, to see how drugs are regulated, and if the quality of the drugs we make is not up to standard, then we should be held to book” said Paul Lartey, CEO of LaGray Chemical Company, and member of the MeTA Council in Ghana.

Please download and read the MeTA Annual Review 2008-2009 for more information and make your comments here.

The article goes on to discuss ATI laws and how they relate to MeTA.

“The lesson here is that META needs to be absolutely clear about the pieces of information – the records – that are critical to the dual process of promoting accountability in the pharmaceutical industry and of diagnosing the blockages that prevent poor people from accessing affordable, safe medicine.

MeTA’s biggest challenge may be to identify the precise documents that will unlock the opacity of the supply chain and to then forge consensus about the rules of the game for their disclosure – what must be disclosed, when and how, and to whom.”

Read the whole article here

What Access to Information laws exist in your country?

Do you have an experience to share with people in other countries to encourage them in their work?

The latest issue of the Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA) newsletter highlights the worry that some stakeholders feel about engaging in a complex dialogue process. In particular, civil society organisations often – as Minu Hemmanti points out – have concerns over co-option, of losing independence, and being in a situation where the political and economic power of other participants in a multi-stakeholder process might divide civil society or dilute the strength of its voice and its advocacy for change.

MeTA believes that the multi-stakeholder process it is facilitating in seven countries is very much about change and transformation. It seeks to:

* shift some decision-making power to consumers
* put greater competitive pressure on suppliers
* promote better governance and more appropriate resource allocation by public purchasers
* improve the functioning of the pharmaceutical market
* encourage innovative and responsible business practices.

We think that helping to shape the agenda of the dialogue, learning about what solutions are possible, and working together to encourage change are strong incentives for civil society to engage in the multi-stakeholder process.

What about you? What’s your experience of engaging in multi-stakeholder processes? Has it been positive or negative? What can make a multi-stakeholder process effective for everyone?

Two of the presentations – one from Peru and the other from Jordan – have attracted positive comments from people who viewed the slides. The comment from Peru was posted by Ideeleradio, a Peruvian community-based radio station. A representative from Ideeleradio attended a MeTA-sponsored workshop for civil society held in the Philippines in June 2008, to encourage greater engagement of civil society groups in the efforts to improve transparency in the health sector.

Praise for transparency efforts in Peru and Jordan
Ideeleradio in Peru has broadcast a story about a decision by the Ministry of Health to introduce a more public oversight over the provision of health care facilities. Minister of Health, Oscar Ugarate, announced that the government was cancelling an agreement with the Organisation of the Spanish American States (OEI) to construct a new hospital due to delays.

The OEI has agreed to return funds (41 million soles) that had been committed to the project. To improve the transparency of decision making around projects like this and encourage greater citizen involvement in efforts to improve health services, the Ministry has announced an oversight commission, particularly to speed up processes around Ica, the site of a 2007 earthquake. The commission will include representatives from the local population and local and regional authorities.

At the same time, the Treasury department has announced an investigation into the dealings of a former Congressman and former Health Minister around alleged irregularities in relation to the construction of hospitals in various parts of the country.

In Jordan, an announcement by the Director of the High Health Council about the government’s commitment to increasing transparency around the procurement, distribution, sale and use of medicines has attracted positive comment. One Jordanian citizen, praising the quality of the health services, noted that this effort would strengthen Jordan’s leadership in the region.