Today, 21 November 2022, marks our official 50th anniversary. With this milestone we look back at 50 years of bridging the gap in access to medicines and medical supplies.

In the run-up to this anniversary, we shared stories from our global partner network - highlighting the work of our suppliers, agents and distributors, customers, and other partners. In September, we gathered at our Building Healthy Futures event to celebrate this special anniversary with our partners and colleagues from around the world. During this hybrid event, we reflected on the past five decades, but also took the opportunity to look ahead, focusing on our three long-term goals: Universal Health Coverage, Strengthened Local Capacity and Sustainable Value Chains.

OUR FUTURE PERSPECTIVE

Today, on our anniversary day, we look at the future perspective of our work in global health. Our mission - being the vital link that provides access to medicines and medical goods to countries in need, has always been, and will remain at the center of our work.

Universal Health Coverage (UHC)

We aim to maximise our impact through our role as a procurement agent for global health programmes focusing on malaria, TB, and HIV/AIDS. We also contribute to UHC by anticipating on the increasing demands related to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and through increased focus on emergency response. This has increased over the past years due to the rise of humanitarian disasters (natural disasters, war, famine, and disease outbreaks).

Strengthened Local Capacity

We expect our role as supplier will shift, as we foresee a strong rise of local partners in LMICs in the next 10 years. The aim is to support these organisations through knowledge sharing, and capacity building amongst others. Our focus will be on strengthening this network and relationship to support the strengthening of local health systems, and in addition, on working with local manufacturers in our destination countries that comply with our quality standards, to supply essential medicines and supplies.

Sustainable Value Chains

We have an important role to play in recognising and addressing the social and environmental impacts of the global healthcare supply chain. Our ISO 14001 certification is a next step in our commitment to the environment: actively identifying our impacts and looking for opportunities to improve and influence processes to reduce waste, prevent pollution and reduce the carbon footprint of IDA, and its partners. We support social sustainability by setting high standards when it comes to gender equality, human rights and diversity and inclusion, amongst others.

50 YEARS IDA STORY CAMPAIGN

You can find all the stories we published throughout our anniversary year here:

• IDA 50 years – a timeline
• Tackling logistic challenges
• Strengthening emergency response and preparedness
• Ensuring access to medical supplies
• IDA’s pharmaceutical suppliers
• The IDA team
• Ensuring access to essential health products in the pacific region
• Building healthy futures in Cameroon
• Agents & Distributors in the spotlight
• An exciting year ahead