Overview of the centrally funded contraceptive procurement project no. 936-3018

provides most of the world"s donated contraceptive commodities including condoms, birth control pills, vaginal foaming tablets, and intrauterine devices. Currently costing about $60 million per year, this assistance is expected to rise dramatically. Fueled by greater awareness of family planning methods, the introduction of new technologies, and the widening problems of AIDS, this burgeoning demand poses the potential for exerting more pressure on already weak project administration. The Contraceptive Procurement Project was initiated in 1981 as A.I.D."s vehicle for centrally procuring commodities from U.S. suppliers; from 1982-88 about $244 million was spent on contraceptives, plus many millions for related TA. The project extends beyond buying and delivering products to, in effect, being the focal point of a complex logistics management system that spans public and private institutions in about 82 countries, involves 5 suppliers, 4 kinds of commodities, 2 other Federal agencies, numerous private cooperating agencies and contractors, and A.I.D. offices around the world. This enormous task is imposed on a Headquarters activity that employs 3 full-time people. Overlaying the day-to-day problems inherent in a project of this size is the absence of clear guidelines concerning the financial resources A.I.D. is willing to commit, the number of countries it should assist, and the diversity of products to be provided. The audit showed that the S&T Bureau has taken many initiatives to strengthen project administration. However, the absence of an operational plan to coordinate activities with overseas Missions and recipient countries seriously diminishes the chances of economically providing safe, effective products. Project funding arrangements involve hundreds of records annually and are unnecessarily cumbersome and inefficient. In addition, key aspects of the project are inadequately controlled leading to questionable estimates of requirements, untargeted TA, sporadic ordering by Missions, unauthorized diversions of products, and inadequate overseas storage and distribution practices. Also, A.I.D. has inappropriately continued to rely upon the General Services Administration as its procurement agent and now expects to pay about $3.9 million per year for these services. The lack of a comprehensive quality assurance program makes it impossible to assign responsibility for product failures and to avoid losses, which have exceeded $2 million. Finally, the project has continued TA without specifically providing for eventual adoption by recipient countries of commodity management responsibilities. Recommendations propose cutting back on the numbers of brands purchased, eliminating the GSA as procurement agent, developing a new funding mechanism, improving quality control and reporting, and targeting TA to areas of need. S&T Bureau strongly concurred in the overall report findings and recommendations, but said, however, that it lacked the authority to implement recommendations that involve budget decisions and procedural policies that are set elsewhere in A.I.D. It suggested that the report be directed to the A.I.D. Administrator. (Author abstract, modified)