IMANI – Ghana (policy think tank), www.AfricanLiberty.org the Initiative for Public Policy Analysis, (Nigeria) the Health Access Network, and the mPedigree Network cordially invite you to the inaugural West African Forum on Access to Quality Medicines and Vaccines.

Given the recent concern about the substandard quality of a significant proportion of the medicines sold and dispensed in the West African sub-region, the forum is urgently required to collect views of key stakeholders in the health sector about how to address these challenges. Furthermore, the high prices of essential pharmaceuticals, and the difficulty marketers of medicines have in selling their products in other countries beyond their own, are also major concerns that need to be discussed.

These views will be used in a proposed draft policy paper on how to expand access to quality medicines for decision makers in the region.

There shall be stakeholder sessions organized around the communities of: Industry, Health Professionals & Academics, and Policymakers & Regulators.  In addition to the aforementioned organizations, the Ministry of Health (Ghana), the Ghana Food & Drugs Board, the WHO and the West Africa Health Organisation, the Ministry of Health (Nigeria), and leading stakeholders of the Nigerian pharmaceutical industry have also been invited.

We wish to invite you to the conference. Very limited seats are available. Please indicate acceptance by Friday, November 20, 2009. Please email mavis@imanighana.com or call 0244 973 951 to reserve a seat.  The date is Tuesday, 24^th of November 2009, the venue is La Palm Royal Beach Hotel, Accra (Homowo Conference Center), and the time is 09:00AM – 6:00PM