Interview with Ambassador Zephyr Mutanguha, Director General of CAMERWA

How has HIV/AIDS affected Rwanda?

Ambassador Zephyr Mutanguha: HIV is something that is today devastating our society. It is killing a lot of people. It is negatively impacting the economy of our country. Every effort must be done to try and fight it. First of all, we must try to stop it and provide longer lives to people who have it to be productive.

Malaria is another big killer, but HIV is extremely difficult because so far there is no cure—there is no vaccine. Unfortunately, the HIV/AIDS pandemic affects the most productive population of our country.

Ambassador Zephyr Mutanguha: CAMERWA is a government institution with the responsibility of procuring medicines and health products such as antiretrovirals and HIV test kits, storing them, and providing them to the people of Rwanda. We serve government institutions such as district hospitals and pharmacies.

How are you working with SCMS?

Ambassador Zephyr Mutanguha: CAMERWA has a memorandum of understanding with SCMS to provide us with technical assistance. The intention is to make CAMERWA ready to be able to receive direct funding from the US government. We are working together well.

Once we get the money from the US government directly for procurement for HIV/AIDS programs, we will have increased our capacity to perform locally, including for other donors such as the Global Fund. We will fulfill our objectives of providing medicines at the best price to the people of Rwanda.

How has technical assistance helped modernize CAMERWA’s warehousing operations?

Ambassador Zephyr Mutanguha: There are three pillars of CAMERWA’s activities: procurement, warehousing and distribution. Warehousing is central because if you have an organized warehouse, distribution will be done professionally, and procurement will also be done well.

SCMS has helped look at the current state of our warehouse and identify a number of ways to modernize it; for example, the warehouse set-up and the establishment of bin locations.

I sent two of our staff to SCMS warehouse facilities in South Africa for training. One is a fellow in charge of quantification, the other in charge in distribution. They spent almost one month there. This training, plus the on-site technical support of two experts from SCMS, will help to make the CAMERWA warehouse much more modern and professional, enabling us to distribute products more efficiently.

We want to change CAMERWA. We want to make it a top-notch institution, one that is managed professionally and in a transparent manner. We’ve received a lot of support already from SCMS in that respect.

In the procurement area we are now doing quantification, including training. We are also looking at other areas of cooperation with SCMS, including cost-accounting and financial management of the institution—all necessary to receive direct US government funding.

At the end of it all, what really matters is the impact you have had on the “end user”—the people in the village, for instance. How do the activities of this institution impact the poor people? We should be able to take the medicines to the people in villages at a cheap price, at the right time.

Have you seen any success so far as you move toward making these changes?

Ambassador Zephyr Mutanguha: Yes. For example, there was a crisis of stockouts of antiretrovirals and HIV test kits. SCMS was able to help us procure these items from the regional distribution centers and that saved a lot of lives. That is what matters. It helps us a lot that they are able to move these products quickly to the people who need them.

What are some lessons that you have learned that you would like to share with other countries?

Ambassador Zephyr Mutanguha: One thing is exposure to better learning systems—to learn how other systems are working and to borrow from other developed countries and their institutions how they do it. SCMS will help us learn because of the experience that it has in dealing with the manufacturers and suppliers and so that in the future we are able to deal with them directly. Information sharing is also important. We should have as much info about the manufacturers as possible. We should be able to learn about the quality of the products produced from the manufacturers.

Rwanda is a small country, so sometimes big manufacturers do not take a small entity seriously because the quantities we are buying from them are so low. By working with SCMS we are exposed to more manufacturers and more suppliers so they will take us more seriously. With SCMS, we are able to pool procurement to secure better prices. We’re also looking at pooling procurement with neighboring countries.

What is your vision of success?

Ambassador Zephyr Mutanguha: I want CAMERWA to be a leader in the areas of procuring, warehousing and distribution of essential medicines and other supplies—to be the best in the region. I appreciate the support that SCMS can provide. .