topnaman | Malaria blog

The Roll Back Malaria (RBM) coalition’s Global Malaria Action Plan was released against the backdrop of the world’s mover and shakers at the recent UN meeting. The Plan calls for a worldwide scale-up of key interventions with the goal of saving 4.2 million lives by 2015 and several other milestones beyond that date. Additionally, the action plan hopes to eliminate malaria from a number of countries. The strategy is divided into 3 broad components: scale-up/sustained control, elimination, and research to support both. I am particularly impressed by the prominence accorded to the last component, research, within the strategy. Even more admirable are the three priorities identified within the research plan: research and development for new tools, research to inform policy decisions, and operational and implementation research. Emphasis on the latter two components has been severely lacking and addressing these policy and programmatic challenges will be critical for any success (see previous posts here, and here).

Donors have committed an initial $3 billion towards the actions outlined in the plan. The bulk of the funds were pledged by the World Bank ($1.1 billion) and the Global Fund ($1.6 billion). I believe the total amount includes  $168.7 million from the Gates foundation to fund work on new malaria vaccines. The total cost of the global strategy is estimated to average US$ 5.9 billion per year from 2011 to 2020.

A lesser known fact regarding the Global Malaria Action Plan is that the private firm Boston Consulting Group was brought in to do the bulk of the work. There’s nothing wrong with their involvement – in fact I would credit RBM for allocating priority to the plan and bringing in outside help to develop it rapidly and effectively. However, it begets the question of why an organization housed within the foremost body in international health does not have the internal capacity to develop a global strategy plan?