Africa's resource platform for supply chain excellence.
The Africa Resource Center for Excellence in Supply Chain Management (ARC_ESM) is a Nigerian social enterprise providing supply chain expertise, talent and solutions to governments, the private sector and development partners.
Founded in 2016 and incubated by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria (PSHAN), ARC_ESM brokers and matches talent, finance, expertise, tools and training from the private sector, academia, professional associations and implementing partners to the demand from Ministries of Health, agencies and donors driving large-scale transformation across the continent.
Over the past decade, ARC_ESM has delivered proven supply chain impact across Nigerian states and built long-standing relationships with the Gates Foundation, the Global Fund and USAID, among others. We work through three operating platforms: the Private Sector Membership (PSM) Platform, the Center of Excellence (CoE) and the Expert Pool. ARC_ESM was incorporated in Nigeria in June 2020 as a Company Limited by Guarantee.
Vision and mission
To be Africa’s leading institution for supply chain excellence, building and exporting African-designed consulting, talent, and solutions that drive transformative outcomes across the continent and beyond.
To be the leading resource platform for governments, private sectors, and development partners, ensuring equitable access to essential goods and services for all citizens across Africa, through world-class consulting, talent development, and institutional partnership.
Our core values
Every engagement is structured to shift ownership of the supply chain to governments, not to create dependency.
Incubating new service concepts, market-shaping interventions and digital tools for African supply chains.
Diagnostics, scorecards and independent reviews that measure progress honestly and guide course correction.
An independent strategic partner to government, donors and industry, trusted to broker fairly between them.
Equitable access to essential goods and services for all citizens, and an African talent base open to all.
World-class consulting, certification and research partnerships with leading institutions.
Our operating model
ARC_ESM is transitioning from a single-entity social enterprise into a structured group of complementary delivery units, combining mission-driven donor programming with commercially financed consulting and market-making services.
Our value proposition rests on three things that rarely come together in African supply chain work:
We do not just advise – we broker, convene and build markets.
How we work
Across all delivery units, ARC_ESM applies a consistent methodology built on three interdependent approaches.
ARC_ESM serves as an independent supply chain strategic partner to the Federal Ministry of Health, its agencies, State departments and donors. Through diagnostics, scorecards, policy papers, conferences and advocacy, we generate evidence that shapes supply chain priorities and positions governments and partners to invest in the right interventions at the right time.
Direct support to governments and institutions to co-design strategies, policy frameworks, PPP models and implementation plans. Engagements are structured to transfer ownership to the client: ARC_ESM facilitates; it does not prescribe.
Connecting governments to the relationships, resources and financing they cannot access on their own: matching States to private sector partners and financing, linking institutions to academic and technical resources through the CoE, and facilitating market-shaping transactions through the GPF.
Our knowledge and influence engine
Underpinning every engagement is ARC_ESM’s knowledge and influence engine, coordinated by our Knowledge Management Unit (KMU).
Market intelligence reports, performance dashboards, State scorecards, and price and quality registries.
Formal research with academic partners including Arizona State University and MIT/Zaragoza Logistics Center.
Impact case studies, an annual market intelligence report, multimedia products and conference keynotes.
Evidence that reaches decision-makers and mobilises investment.
Delivery units
ARC_ESM operates through four delivery units, each serving a defined market and drawing on a shared platform asset base.
ARC_ESM’s resource aggregation and business development engine. The BDU houses the three operating platforms (PSM, Expert Pool and CoE), manages private sector membership and academic and institutional partnerships, and leads proposal development, donor engagement and new partnership origination.
Delivers ARC_ESM’s core government-facing consulting, commissioned directly by State Ministries, federal agencies and national health bodies to design, implement and evaluate supply chain interventions.
Manages ARC_ESM’s portfolio of donor-funded projects and is the primary vehicle for international development programming with partners such as the Gates Foundation, Global Fund, USAID and Gavi. It is the foundation of ARC_ESM’s credibility and government relationships. Current flagship: FONSCS, a 24-month Gates Foundation grant focused on supply chain market shaping and Group Purchasing Framework (GPF) scale-up.
Incubates new service concepts, tests market-shaping interventions and develops ARC_ESM’s next generation of intellectual property.
Resource platforms
The three platforms are the resource infrastructure that every delivery unit draws from, representing over a decade of curated relationships, knowledge and institutional capital. Seeded by the Gates Foundation, all three have operated fully commercially since 2025.
An organized membership of Nigerian pharmaceutical manufacturers, logistics firms and technology companies providing financing, expertise, models and CSR resources, and working directly with governments. Today: 46 active member companies.
International and local institutions driving supply chain education, research and certification, with partners including Arizona State University, MIT/Zaragoza Logistics Center and ISCEA. Today: 1,700+ professionals certified since 2018.
A pan-African network of 200+ certified supply chain and public health specialists, available as volunteers or paid consultants and deployed on project demand. Today: 200+ certified specialists.
Who we serve
National and subnational Ministries of Health and federal agencies in Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana.
Gates Foundation, Global Fund, USAID and Gavi.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers, logistics and technology firms.
Local and international universities and certifying bodies.
The Nigeria Health Commissioners Forum.
The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Group of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (PMG-MAN).
A lean team, a deep network
ARC_ESM runs a lean team model, which keeps our staff strength and overheads low. We leverage our network of experts to set up project teams as the need arises. Our current staff strength is 8, supported by 50 consultants and volunteers (short, medium and long-term) across our projects, platforms and units.
- Core staff813.8%
- Consultants & volunteers5086.2%
Leadership
ARC_ESM Leadership consists of a Board of Directors supported by a Company Secretary and a management team. The Board brings professionals from Public Health, Supply Chain Management, Finance, Audit and Administration. It has 7 members, including one Executive Director who also serves as Chief Executive Officer. The Board is 100% Nigerian with 60% female representation.
Meet the Board of Directors, Company Secretary and Executive Management Team guiding ARC_ESM.
Meet the team →A decade of impact
The sole partner supporting NPSCMP to develop the National Supply Chain Strategy Blueprint (2021–2025), then rolling it out across States: State DMAs grew from 6 in 2020 to 26 today.
Engaged by The Global Fund to deliver an independent midterm review of the National Health Product Supply Chain Strategy 2021–2025 at National and State levels (final report, May 2023).
Eleven States supported along the national maturity pathway; Kaduna, Kano, Nasarawa and Yobe reached Maturing Ready to Integrate, beating the FMoH target of three by 2025.
Offices
Partners and funders
ARC_ESM 2.0
2025 was the year ARC_ESM launched ARC_ESM 2.0, and 2026 marks a bold entry into its next five years of innovation and impact.
Part of the ARC family
ARC_ESM is part of the Africa Resource Centre family. Its sister organisation, ARC Africa, strengthens public health systems with independent advisory and enablement services to African health ministries, working in over 12 countries with regional offices in South Africa, Senegal and Kenya.