Local production of contraceptives in developing countries.

The local production of contraceptives is considered in this paper. Focus is on the following: perceptions of contraceptive supply and production issues (international and local viewpoints); the decision making practice (the limits of production purpose and nature of feasibility studies options for implementation special problems and considerations in assessing feasibility of industrial projects in developing countries specific product considerations and quality control); current status (existing facilities models for local production of contraceptives and project and production costs); and strategies (donors and the developing countries). In the face of increasing uncertainty regarding the nature and extent of donor assistance many governments are exploring in greater detail the options available to them for self-support in family planning. Except for those countries that already have a substantial contraceptive manufacturing industry the options for self-support in contraceptive supplies involve either procurement using international currencies or development of the means to manufacture locally. Very few developing countries presently have use rates sufficient to justify full-scale local production but packaging and testing operations may be scaled to the needs of many countries. Feasibility studies are necessary for developing country governments to make a decision whether to participate directly or through the private sector in the manufacturing of contraceptives. The donor agencies can play a vital role in these decisions. From the local perspective several benefits arise from local production of contraceptives providing contraceptive use is sufficient to justify a reasonable scale of production technology. Full-scale production of contraceptives can only be carried out efficiently at production volumes above a minimum scale of operation. The technologies associated with different contraceptive products are sufficiently different that each presents a unique set of problems and calls for special consideration at a very early stage of the study. Condom IUD and oral contraceptive production are reviewed. The current cost of setting up complete contraceptive production capabilities at the minimum economic scale in a developing country is likely to be in the range of U.S. $5-8 million for condom production $4-6 million for oral contraceptive formulation and tabletting and $2-3 million for sterilized individually packaged long-life copper IUD production.