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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Damaged infrastructure mean populations living in conflict-affected areas have difficulty in accessing essential medical supplies and equipment. The typical international humanitarian response is to source new equipment from abroad, which is slow and costly. Creating Hope in Conflict: A Humanitarian Grand Challenge (CHIC) funded Field Ready to establish a local infrastructure model in Syria and demonstrate that an alternative model is possible and scalable. The model would ensure medical products were delivered to hospitals and clinics faster, cheaper, and more efficiently compared to traditional procurement routes, meaning more people would receive timely, appropriate care. The infrastructure would consist of providing digital technology for local manufacturers, training local manufacturers to repair and replace existing devices, providing quality assurance checks, training medical practitioners to operate, repair and maintain devices, and facilitating relationships between local suppliers (the manufacturers) and local buyers (the medical centres).
Creating Hope in Conflict: A Humanitarian Grand Challenge contracted Triple Line Consulting to deliver a series of outcome and value for money case studies for a sample of funded innovations. The principle objectives of these case studies are:
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To capture outcomes delivered by the CHIC program and validate CHIC's contributions that led to these outcomes.
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To support CHIC in delivering value for money case studies by providing the evidence base on the achievement of intermediate outcomes and CHIC's contribution to these.
Below is a summary of the findings of the outcome and value for money case study developed for Field Ready, a CHIC-funded innovation.
INTERMEDIATE OUTCOMES ACHIEVED, THEIR SIGNIFICANCE AND CHIC CONTRIBUTION
OUTCOME 1 – CHIC support to achieve scale and sustainability. Field Ready delivered on its transition to scale objectives by providing 35 new devices, servicing 36 additional hospitals and delivering 200 new parts. Local workshops were operating successfully and Field Ready had generated high demand for their services by the end of the project. Field Ready demonstrated that a local supply chain of medical equipment repair and supply is viable within conflict settings. They also applied their model in a second CHIC-funded project in collaboration with two other CHIC grantees. However, hospitals do not have the funds to continue major repairs without Field Ready’s support and Field Ready had to discontinue the project when the CHIC funding ended. Field Ready are continuing to advocate for local supply chain models within humanitarian settings using evidence that was generated through the CHIC project.
Through the Local Procurement Learning Partnership which they co-founded, Field Ready regularly participates in research, speaks to donors, and shares lessons on local manufacturing.
OUTCOME 2 – Further investment and completion of transition-to-scale phase. Field Ready established many implementing partnerships to support the delivery of their innovation, including with authorities and relevant ecosystem actors. They were also able to demonstrate significant cost efficiencies resulting from their model. Despite this, as noted Field Ready were unable to secure further funding from other sources to continue the project and establish the financial sustainability of their model. Now that Field Ready has demonstrated that their model is scalable, the service relies on consistent funding from donors willing to support the delivery of medical supplies in conflict affected areas.
OUTCOME 3 – Use of innovation by vulnerable populations affected by conflict and by humanitarian responders. During the lifetime of the grant, Field Ready significantly exceeded their targets and reached 100,886 end users with their repaired or manufactured health devices. Furthermore, they were able to reach vulnerable groups who would have otherwise not been able to access medical care at all. Family members of ill or injured individuals also saw financial and social benefits from devices being available for their relatives. Medical staff, engineers, and facility managers in need of resources also received and appreciated the direct support provided by Field Ready.
OUTCOME 4 – Humanitarian ecosystem is strengthened. Despite Field Ready and CHIC’s efforts to share lessons about Field Ready’s localized model with actors in the humanitarian ecosystem, there is little evidence of this advocacy leading uptake of a localised model across the humanitarian ecosystem thus far.
Unforeseen intermediate outcome level results include long term benefits of medical staff having the skills to maintain medical devices and manufacturers being able to offer new services to boost their income. There have also been unexpected secondary effects such as reducing the environmental costs of delivering spare parts or new devices to conflict-affected areas and seeing an improvement in the mental health of ill or injured individuals and their families.
CHIC’s contribution to results was principally through its grant funding which paid for Field Ready to set up the infrastructure and provide a training and networking role to manufacturers and health facilities. Additionally, CHIC helped Field Ready strengthen their approach to gender equality and build their capacity in evidence generation and networking.