The Interagency Pharmaceutical Coordination group (IPC)
The Interagency Pharmaceutical Coordination (IPC) Group consists of the senior pharmaceutical advisers of the World Health Organization, World Bank, UNAIDS, UNFPA and UNICEF. The IPC group meets every six months.
Objectives
The purpose of the group is to
- coordinate the pharmaceutical policies underlying their technical advice to partner countries;
- plan and coordinate the preparation of interagency statements and technical documents.
Activities
Medicines are essential for curative and preventive health services. They are also economically important, as in most developing countries drugs constitute the largest household expenditure for health and the second-largest in national health budgets (after salaries). Any health sector reform process has to address the issue of pharmaceuticals.
Mission organizations, bilateral donors and multilateral organizations support the pharmaceutical sector in many ways. The presence of different development agencies in the field has sometimes resulted in contradictory advice given to the recipient country, or even to conflicting conditions made by different partners. This has often had a negative effect on the impact of the technical collaboration, to a waste of resources, and to frustration on all sides. Since 1996 the pharmaceutical advisers of WHO, the World Bank, UNICEF and recently UNFPA meet regularly to coordinate the pharmaceutical policies underlying their technical advice to partner countries. The first meeting was held in Stockholm in 1996, on the initiative of the Swedish Government. Since then the IPC group has met at six-monthly intervals. These meetings, and many contacts in between, have lead to a much better exchange of information between the organizations, to more consistency of the technical advice given, and to the development of several joint policy documents and guidelines. In 2001 the IPC group was extended to include UNAIDS.
Contact:
Dr Marthe Everard
HTP/PSM
World Health Organization
CH-1211 Geneva 27
Switzerland