Through technical assistance from SCMS, many countries where we work are upgrading their own warehouses to international standards and bringing lasting change to the public health infrastructure across Africa and elsewhere. With these changes, countries are able to store more public health commodities than ever before and distribute them reliably and efficiently to service delivery points. Importantly, the impact goes far beyond HIV/AIDS, as many of the warehouses hold stocks for the full range of public health programs.

In this issue, you will learn how SCMS has helped improve warehousing and distribution in several countries. For example, in Uganda we have worked with the Joint Medical Store (JMS), a faithbased organization serving the needs of mission hospitals and clinics, to strengthen its warehousing practices. You will also learn how SCMS is helping contract with commercial services to deliver commodities to often hardtoreach areas - working with FedEx in Zambia to distribute laboratory controls, and with local private transport companies in Haiti. And, you will find out how new technology is being used in Rwanda to revolutionize their warehousing system...