Developing country governments, and the ministries of health in particular, are charged with the essential task of delivering essential health products to their citizens within the context of constrained health system capacity and limited financial resources. Getting district- and country-level demand forecasts right is critical to both the availability and affordability of these products by eliminating shortages and waste at the point of delivery and by informing decisionmaking further upstream in the supply chain. To achieve this, national program managers must take forecasting seriously, adopting principles of good demand forecasting - including increasing transparency of the demand forecasting process in countries and globally. Above all, the forecasting process must be independent, free from political interference, and separate from advocacy and target setting.
Ideas to action: independent research for global prosperity