Hi Norbert. There isn’t a straightforward answer to this question (and I’m by no means an expert) but I suspect you’d need to explore options for a vehicle tracking system. These days, “passive” GPS trackers are quite inexpensive and easy to install on a truck. Provided you have GPS coordinates of the stores where the vehicle needs to go, you can geofence so that you will know if the vehicle went to where it was supposed to. The advantage of these trackers is that it helps for fleet management and route planning (are the drivers speeding? taking the least direct route and using more fuel than needed?…etc). For trucks that are making large deliveries, I suspect this would be a cost-effective options. Hope this helps. Best. Patrick

Patrick is right. GPS trackers will tell you whether the truck has visited the store. And that's useful for other reasons too: the tracker will also tell you where else the truck has been.

Another way to get proof of delivery is simply to have a standard receipt form carried by the driver and signed by the person who receives the consignment. A proof of delivery form is typically pre-filled in with the contents of the delivery (E.g. xxx doses pre-filled oxytocin, date xxx, delivered date: xxx, plus perhaps status of one sample EVM). The location of the delivery is filled in be the receiving officer with his/her name and signature, then the form is taken back to the higher level storekeeper. Sometimes a copy is kept by the receiving agent.

Does this help, or are you thinking of some other type of proof of delivery? I know this this is sometimes a challenge for international deliveries of donated drugs to tropical diseases.

Hi Norbert,

I'm not sure what level of delivery you are considering. However we have had some experience in Papua New Guinea of successfully improving medical supplies deliveries to the most remote communities through a multi-component program that included:

- issuing all transport contractors with a GPS locator digital camera and only paying for a delivery on the basis of a digital photo of health worker with supplies with GPS and time proof or receipt plus a signed receipt from health worker

- contracting a range of different transport companies (rather than one national contract) to allow tailoring to local context;

- defining 'hard-to-reach' delivery locations and including stipulations in the contracts that 'hard-to-reach' sites must have same coverage as other sites, plus withholding payment if hard-to-reach deliveries were falling behind by more than an acceptable proportion

- focusing on a regular push system to supplement the usual facility ordering

We saw a rapid jump in availability of essential commodities with this program. This was funded by the Australian government, but some elements, including the photos were considered favourably by the PNG government for their own use. Our evaluation should be accessible at:

https://dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/Documents/png-burnet-institute-medical-supply-evaluation.pdf

cheers

Chris Morgan