Key lessons and recommendations
Training of drug shop staff increases knowledge, skills and compliance to guidelines, as well as their credibility, thus improving community trust. There is a need to ensure high quality, continuous and affordable supply of essential medicines to enable drug shops to contribute to health systems strengthening efforts.
Supervision and monitoring visits should be conducted on a regular basis to help identify implementation issues and advise on their correction.
Multi-stakeholder collaboration and communication is essential. Stakeholders may have competing interests, so jointly determined goals may help build long term relationships. It can also help build policy and legislative environments that facilitate the role of drug shops in health systems strengthening.
Drug shop owners are motivated by customer demand and profitability of their shops. Financial and administrative costs discourage drug shops from participating in initiatives. They may need to be incentivised, either financially or otherwise, to participate.