MeTA Countries
The seven countries – Ghana, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Peru, the Philippines, Uganda and Zambia – vary enormously. But all their governments have made a high-level political commitment to sign up to MeTA’s core principles, to increase accountability at all levels of the medicines supply chain, and to work with the private sector and with civil society in order to take MeTA forward.
The countries have made commitments to support the formation of a national secretariat and a MeTA National Stakeholder Forum and to make information available to the public on the quality, availability, pricing and promotion of medicines. Each country selects its own priority areas for improvement in the medicines supply chain and these chosen areas become the focus of their work.
A large amount of pharmaceutical information has been collected and collated by MeTA countries. A country comparison of the MeTA baseline assessments provides a snapshot of this information.
Only one-third of Ghanaians have access to good quality medicines; one reason why the country is happy to participate in MeTA.
In Jordan, prices of medicines in private pharmacies are high, and low-income groups cannot afford some treatments.
In Kyrgyzstan, a range of stakeholders are particularly concerned about high medicine prices and limited access to medicines in rural areas.
Transparency and medicines in Peru have come together to provide an opportunity to get affordable, quality medicines to the poorest people.
Stakeholders in the Philippines pinpointed lack of transparency in pricing, promotion and procurement of medicines as critical factors.
