About us

ADP works to ensure that people in low- and middle-income countries have access to life-saving health technologies – medicines, vaccines and diagnostic tools – with an emphasis on those technologies that address tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases.

The partners

ADP brings together the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR) and PATH in a unique partnership that helps identify and strengthen capacity gaps in low- and middle-income countries in an innovative and integrated way.

Strengthening national health systems

In line with the overarching approach of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, ADP adopts a systemic and integrated perspective towards health system strengthening, aimed at the interlinked targets of eliminating communicable and infectious diseases and achieving real progress towards universal health coverage.

Supporting national responses to COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical importance of ensuring equitable access to health services, as well as increasing availability of medicines, vaccines and diagnostic tools in response to established and emerging health threats.

Regional, global and
South-South cooperation

Focusing on common challenges across different health systems, ADP leverages the experiences and expertise of its network of stakeholders to deliver both policy lessons and technical solutions.

Focus countries

ADP collaborates with stakeholders in a number of focus countries – Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Malawi, Senegal, United Republic of Tanzania and Thailand
– to implement a range of capacity-strengthening interventions, which are in line with the ADP strategic approach of leveraging the expertise of its four core partners and working across sectors to help strengthen and harmonize policies, regulations and systems, as well as build the capacities of key people and institutions.

Uniting Efforts

The global response to the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how close collaboration among multiple stakeholders can overcome major hurdles to the development, approval and delivery of new medicines, vaccines and diagnostic tools. But opportunities for such intense collaboration are rare, and access to new health technologies remains uneven.

Knowledge products

ADP knowledge products advance learning and contribute to improved policies, programmes and practices, as well as demonstrate human impact on the ground.

TDR Implementation research toolkit

This toolkit is designed to help teams conduct implementation research projects through a standard process to ensure reliable, high-quality results.

COVID-19 diagnostics procurement resource

An interactive tool to support procurement decisions by aggregating and streamlining publicly available information about the technical specifications, regulatory status and supply of COVID-19 diagnostic tests.

A pipeline analysis of new products for malaria, tuberculosis and neglected tropical diseases

This working paper provides a comprehensive survey of new medicines, diagnostics and vaccines for malaria, TB and selected NTDs, that are currently in the pipeline for market entry by 2020.

Digital Health for Development Hub

A one-stop shop with technical, advisory and partnership support for scaling up digital health solutions.

News

Promoting innovation and access for neglected diseases in Africa

Posted August 21, 2019 By ADP

By helping drive product development and safeguarding sustainable access and delivery in African and other low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), the Access and Delivery Partnership (ADP) and the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (GHIT Fund) use an integrated approach to improve innovation and access to health technologies for populations in need.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development features health prominently among its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with SDG3 setting an ambitious target to end the epidemics of tuberculosis (TB), malaria, AIDS and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) by 2030. SDG3 stresses the critical need for health systems strengthening, achieving universal health coverage (UHC) and research and development (R&D) on new medicines, diagnostics and vaccines – as well as enabling equitable access to these new health technologies as they emerge. The need for synergies between R&D for new health technologies and their access and delivery is clear, and addressing both aspects is critical to enabling LMICs to achieve UHC.

The Government of Japan is partnering with UNDP through two initiatives that address both sides of the health equation in LMICs: driving R&D for unmet health needs; and promoting access and delivery to essential health services. Through the GHIT Fund, the Government of Japan is stimulating investments, as well as global partnerships, for the discovery and development of medicines, diagnostics and vaccines for TB, malaria, NTDs and other diseases. And through ADP, support and technical assistance is provided to LMICs to strengthen capacities, processes and systems to ensure accelerated introduction of such health technologies.

At the upcoming Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD7), to be held in Yokohama, Japan, ADP, GHIT and UN Volunteers are cosponsoring the side event: Partnering for Progress: Promoting Innovation and Access for Neglected Diseases in furtherance of Universal Health Coverage. The objective of the session is to stimulate a dialogue with stakeholders on how the collaborative partnership between UNDP and the Government of Japan can contribute to the attainment of UHC. To participate in the side-event, please go to https://bit.ly/2GFFTDz .

The event will present major achievements and highlight valuable lessons learnt from country-level activities implemented in Ghana, Malawi, Senegal and Tanzania, and ongoing efforts to support the African Union initiative to promote regulatory harmonization across the African region. The annual ADP Status Report, which gives more detail on these projects and achievements in 2018 can be accessed here.

Supporting the region

Since 2013, ADP has supported countries in the African region to address challenges in the access and delivery of health technologies, by helping implement systems and approaches that have far-reaching impacts.

Examples include promoting the African Medicines Regulatory Harmonization initiative through support to development and use of the African Union (AU) Model Law on Medical Products Regulation, establishment of a health technology assessment (HTA) knowledge platform, and creating opportunities for dialogue and South–South learning across the innovation, access and delivery chain.

In January 2019, the Government of Japan, ADP and the GHIT Fund also launched Uniting Efforts for Health, a platform to facilitate dialogue among innovation, access and delivery stakeholders, to improve outcomes for unmet health needs in LMICs. The report on the first meeting can be accessed here.

Other highlights include establishment of the African chapter of the Coalition of Interested Partners to improve capacity building of national regulatory systems and an initiative to maximize the efficacy, safety and efficiency of new TB treatment strategies in 44 African countries through enhanced implementation research and pharmacovigilance.

Central to ADP’s approach is the belief that governments must continue to scale up their investments in innovation and new health technologies, so that UHC and good health and well-being can be attained for all. The aim of the Partnering for Progress event is to share lessons learned to ensure mutual exchange and learning.

Partnering for Progress: Promoting Innovation and Access for Neglected Diseases in furtherance of Universal Health Coverage takes place on Wednesday 28th August, from 10:30 am to 12:00 pm at Exhibition Hall B04, Pacifico Yokohama. It will feature opening remarks by Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator, a keynote speech by Senator Keizo Takemi, House of Councillors of Japan, and a panel of speakers, comprising the Hon. Mr. Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, Minister of Health Ghana; H.E. Amira Elfadil, Commissioner of Social Affairs, African Union; Ms. Catherine Ohura, CEO GHIT Fund; and Mr. Kaoru Terashima, Corporate Vice President, FujiFilm. The event will be moderated by Dr Mandeep Dhaliwal, Director of the HIV, Health and Development Group at UNDP.

African focus countries

ADP is currently implementing activities in four African focus countries to help address their specific access and delivery challenges. ADP helps strengthen the human and institutional capacities that can address critical gaps in health systems.

Ghana

ADP support has contributed to the development and adoption of the National Medicines Policy in 2017, the formulation of the National Health Research Agenda 2015–2019 and the establishment of Safety Watch, a new and effective approach for drug safety monitoring. In 2018, effective multi-sectoral collaboration supported national initiatives for the introduction of two new health technologies: the RTS,S malaria vaccine and targeted mass treatment of yaws with azithromycin.

United Republic of Tanzania

ADP support has enhanced the regulatory system to monitor and respond to safety issues effectively and has enabled the development, piloting and roll-out of guidelines and training materials for strengthening of supply chain management of NTD medicines for mass drug administration campaigns. Ongoing support in establishing a process for health priority-setting, through the HTA review of the National Medicines List, will help towards cost-effectiveness and increased coverage of the national health insurance package.

Senegal

ADP has collaborated with the Ministry of Health and Social Action to establish a multidisciplinary coordinating platform to identify and address barriers experienced by national disease control programmes. It has also supported Senegal to identify the interventions and technical support required for the domestication of the AU Model Law.

Malawi

ADP has engaged with a range of government stakeholders on building national capacity in three areas: the development of an enabling legal and policy environment; regulatory systems strengthening; and improved procurement policy and planning.

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