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Despite great strides in the delivery of healthcare in the developing world, availability and access to quality-assured essential medicines and health technologies remains a challenge and the holy grail of the international public health community. The current efforts and approaches to improving access to essential medicines, as good and noble as they are, are not sufficient to meet the global health objectives for sustainable development and universal access to critical essential medicines. A key organization like WHO acknowledges that it has struggled to improve access to medicines throughout its nearly 70-year history (WHO, 2017). WHO´s former Director General aptly captured this challenge thus (WHO, 2017); "Nearly 2 billion people have no access to basic medicines, causing a cascade of preventable misery and suffering".

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Ngozwana, Skhumbuzo
Skhumbuzo Ngozwana - President & CEO, Kiara Health. He is an internationally renowned Africa Pharma expert and advocate for promoting local pharmaceutical production in Africa and access to safe efficacious medicines and health technologies. He has served as consultant to United States Pharmacopeia (USP), World Health Organization (WHO) and UNIDO.

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