What is ECONME?
 

ECONME (pronounced e-con-me) is a startup foundation in Amsterdam. 

ECONME is a play on the words economy, contraception and me. It signifies the contraception economy should serve 'me' the woman. 

The mission of ECONME is to protect and improve the global supply security of quality-assured, affordably, equitably priced contraceptive commodities.

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Who is behind ECONME?

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The board of ECONME is

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Myriam de Grijs – chairwoman and founder

Dr. Sarah E Hill – secretary 

 

You can read more about our board members here  

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Is ECONME an official non-profit?

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Yes, ECONME is an official registered non-profit at the Chamber of Commerce in the Netherlands.  

As a not-for profit, ECONME will strictly invest and reinvest all available resources into empowering women through the contraceptive commodity market. 

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Pilot project: Connerce

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ECONME’s pilot project is building Connerce. 

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What is Connerce?

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Connerce will be the first global platform to support and promote responsible contraceptive commodity trading between businesses and businesses (b2b) and businesses and governments (b2g). ‘Responsible’ means the platform will look out for women’s interests first. A platform like this does not exist yet. 

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The platform will create more visibility for the contraceptive commodity trade by creating a central place to collect and share information. The platform will also improve transparency, monitor pricing and promote quality testing. 

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Connerce is a response to the call for action from the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition for a better ecosystem for reproductive health supplies, as well as the Centre of Global Development’s call for a transition in global health procurement. Central procurers such as USAID and UNFPA already exist, but big pooled procurement does not benefit all actors and can create systematic risks. Connerce will be a platform for all actors to plug into and benefit from, allowing for systemic benefits and change.

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To create public benefit Connerce will:

 

• require pharma companies, that want to join the platform, to quality test their contraceptive commodities (WHO-prequalification and ASR approval). Access to a wider network of procurers will incentivize them to do so. To measure impact, Connerce will track the additional pharma companies performing quality testing on their contraceptive commodities. The impact objective is to increase the net amount of quality-assured contraceptive commodities traded, and therefore reaching women, globally. 

• benchmark prices on the platform against current prices of contraceptive commodities per country (IQVIA data) to push prices towards more affordable, equitable levels. ECONME plans to collaborate with partners and manufacturers on inter- and intra-country pricing strategies. ECONME will test the theory of change that monitoring prices of commodities at the b2b and b2g level will also reach women at the consumer level (b2c or g2c).

• onboard a critical mass of manufacturers and procurers to improve supply security. The platform will collect data on supply and demand to forecast and prevent anticipated stockouts of contraceptive commodities. 

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There are many actors in the family planning space including the RHSC, USAID, UNFPA, FP2020, Gates Foundation, DFID, CIFF, GFF, PSI,  Living Goods, Marie Stopes, and the Concept Foundation. ECONME wants to make a valuable contribution to the family planning space with Connerce, complimenting and not duplicating work.