Office of the Director, PSM: Main challenges and strategic direction
1. Overall strategic direction
The strategic direction of PSM is largely defined by the WHO Medicines Policy 2004-2007. Within this framework PSM will continue to perform its most relevant and most demanded services.
New areas of technical focus are the right-based approach to access to essential medicines, increased health care financing, better national and global indicators for access, and the development of a ten-year global pharmaceutical agenda with the World Bank and other UN agencies. During 2006 PSM and TCM will start a global consultation process to define the Medicine Strategy for the 4 or 6 years after 2007.
2. Consistency of medicine policies within WHO and between UN agencies
Coordination of pharmaceutical policies is much better between UN agencies than within WHO. PSM will continue to convene 6-monthly meetings of the Interagency Pharmaceutical Coordination (IPC) group (WHO, UNICEF, World Bank, UNAIDS, UNFPA and Global Fund). PSM will also establish and convene a similar WHO Pharmaceutical Coordination Group, to coordinate medicine-related activities between departments and to improve efficiency and consistency of medicine policies, standards and information within WHO.
3. Managerial issues: staff management
Following earlier decentralization of most training programmes and country support to regional and country offices, about 50% of PSM expenditure now concerns staff costs. Staff is therefore by far the most important asset and needs to be selected and supported well. For many very specialized posts (e.g. INN work, normative publications) few experts are available globally. Long on-the-job training time is therefore needed, succession planning is essential and geographical representation can be a real constraint.
PSM will strive to recruit the best global experts in each technical area. Staff competency and motivation will be improved through delegation, mobility and rotation. For certain priority specialist areas waivers for geographical distribution may be needed.
4. Managerial issues: programme and budget
Normative work benefits all member states and should be independent of individual donor decisions; it should therefore be funded from the Regular Budget. However, the long-term importance of PSM's normative and constitutional functions is insufficiently recognized and the programme is largely dependent on extrabudgetary income, for which extensive donor networking and fundraising are necessary.
PSM will continue to manage all donor contacts and fundraising together with TCM, as a joint effort to support the total Area of Work. PSM will submit a staff and activity budget for 2006-2007, excluding from the budget ceiling for the Area of Work the funds PSM will receive and manage for interagency partnerships, such as the Prequalification programme and the Reproductive Health programme, and fee income for the INN programme.