Dear members, colleagues, and friends of PQMD,
As we approach the holidays, we want to take a few moments to reflect on the past year. While it has been a year of continued turmoil and tragedy, it has also meant another year of tremendous work and partnerships by all of our PQMD members. We continue to be encouraged that no matter the situation, our members are committed to responding and providing needed aid, healthcare, and medicines to vulnerable populations across the globe.
PQMD has had a very productive year, kicking off with our 2018 Global Health Policy Forum, held in Washington, D.C., where members, participants, and staff continue to push the envelope of important, necessary, and often difficult conversations across the global aid community. With significant contributions from our members, both financial and intellectual, this Forum gave us the opportunity to review and explore our collective and extraordinary work with disasters and humanitarian response that PQMD members and partners undertook in 2017 and early 2018.
We added a new staff member this year, allowing us to hit the ground running in the increasingly important field of donation impact metrics and evaluation. The newly minted “Collective Impact 2030” team has conducted numerous member and site visits, presented the work to a very encouraging audience at COR-NTD, and is on track to make progress in identifying a system for members and non-members to more accurately answer three critical questions: What difference are medical product programs making in global health? How and why are donated products making progress possible? Where and for whom are donated products making a difference?
Also going strong is our work developing a framework and a set of guidelines for health system strengthening/medical missions. Aided by our active working group and expert advisors, we have completed the first two phases of the project, and throughout 2018 conducted critical pilot missions to the Philippines, Malawi, and Honduras. The feedback has been very encouraging with several organizations in our test countries asking to take on the guidelines and initiate independent implementation
Gaining exciting momentum in 2018, the PQMD Community of Practice continues to provide a dedicated space for members, colleagues, and the global community to engage in peer interest groups to discuss and dissect key policy issues. The CoP Webinar series was also off and running and the team proudly hosted five sessions, exploring such topics as the Global Health Security Agenda, GDPR, Imagining Solutions with Blockchain, AMR and the Supply Chain, and Disaster Preparedness Tools with the World Bank and PAHO. There are many more sessions planned for 2019, and the team is excited about our growing audience and contributors.
Our full membership had the chance to spend several days together at our October Annual General Meeting in Santa Monica, generously hosted by International Medical Corps and Amgen. The opportunity to learn from each other at these educational forums is key to the foundation of our organization, and we cherish the time spent together and lessons we continue to learn.
As we bring 2018 to a close, our staff is already hard at work with members to plan our 2019 Global Health Policy Forum. Set to take place April 16-18 in Geneva, we look forward to building on the conversations and inquiries brought forth by previous meetings, and focusing on transformative thinking in global medical donations and diving into strategies to put “policy in action.” We would love to have you join us as the program develops, and encourage you to contact us so we may keep you updated as details are finalized.
And finally, thank you to each of our members, without whom our organization would not be possible. Thank you for your input, your engagement, your time, and your support, always. The collective effort of the resulting large scale donations and partnerships over the past year have led to significantly more access to medical products and health services for those we all seek to serve, which represents the true core mission of PQMD as well as our members and partners.
We wish you and yours the very best holidays for 2018, and look forward to exciting things to come in 2019!
All our best,
Elizabeth “EJ” Ashbourne & the PQMD Staff
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