Tackling development problems in Africa

Supply Chains (SCs) are critical to the well-being of economies. They are one of the most important means by which governments implement health and economic development strategies. Specifically, in the health sector, SCs are the ‘backbone’ that grant communities access to safe and effective health products. Thus, proper SC infrastructure contributes to the goals of eradicating AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and vaccine-preventable deaths among children, while ensuring access to reproductive health services. Mature SCs also insulate investments in the procurement and distribution of health products and services by donors and national governments.

Demand for strong global SCs is also growing. The global Supply Chain Management (SCM) market size was valued at US $15.85 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach US $37.41 billion by 2027, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 11.2% between 2020 and 2027. The demand for SCM is growing due to increasing needs (mostly among healthcare providers and manufacturers) to improve operational efficiency and reduce operational costs, as well as due to a need for mass production and connected SCs fuelled by population growth. The emergence of cloud-based and mobile-based solutions, as well as advancements in analytics, machine learning, and the advent of social media and Big Data, are further expected to drive the market significantly.

While the relevant SC jobs market in Africa is not well-benchmarked, estimates indicate that the Skills Bank will have a large and growing target market. The SC industry in the United States includes 37% of all jobs in the country, employing about 44 million people. These jobs represent the industries that sell to businesses and to the government, or business-to-business. Because Africa has a significantly less well-developed SC industry, it can be assumed that its job market has a reduced proportion and number of SC jobs compared to the United States. Yet, if just 0.5% of Africa’s employed population (estimated to be roughly 650 million people) were to work in SC-related jobs, the target market for the Skills Bank would include over 3 million individuals.

SCs are therefore critical to economic development and to health systems, and the SC industry is also growing. However, particularly in LMICs, it is challenging to find qualified and experienced Supply Chain Management Consultants (SCMCs) who can aid in streamlining and restructuring these vital SCs so they can be as efficient and as effective as possible. While large, multinational enterprises have the resources to develop and internally train SCMCs, most organisations in LMICs currently face two inadequate choices: either to employ inexperienced SCMCs who may not have the skills or experience to solve the organisation’s problems, or to rely on external SCMCs and not to develop internal competencies.

Although there have been recent humanitarian efforts to strengthen SCs by global sponsors and experts from high-income regions, these efforts have shown little evidence of skills transfer. Most SC networks in LMICs are not locally sustained or managed and do not have complete local ownership. Further, the movements of local SCMCs between industries and countries leave key sectors without capable professionals that can be recruited and developed as needed. Ultimately, the lack of SCM proficiency undermines the development agenda of LMICs – and is an impactful systemic problem that needs to be solved.

Our objective at the Skills Bank is to build stronger and more effective economic outcomes within the African markets through Africa-based client organisations to improve SCM performance within the industry. Currently, a platform like the Skills Bank does not exist to serve African markets and SC professionals. The Skills Bank aims to address the above problems by supporting and encouraging the development of SC professionals in Africa, as detailed in the following section.

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