The Booster Program for Malaria Control in Africa World Bank’s Global Strategy and Booster Program into an outcomes-driven assault on malaria in Africa. As detailed in the document, the Booster Program is designed to augment and reinvigorate existing programs, and does not constitute an independent initiative. This effort will build on a revitalized Roll Back Malaria Global Partnership (RBM) and complement the efforts of other partners both at national and regional levels in an effort to bring malaria under control.
The Booster Program is planned to last ten years, including an intensive phase spanning the Bank’s fiscal years 2006–2008, meaning July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2008, during which the Bank will contribute to an aggressive effort to achieve control of malaria. The decade-long timeline reflects the difficulty of fighting this entrenched, deadly disease in Africa. It is important to stress that long-term financial and institutional commitments from governments and partners alike will be required to sustainably reduce malaria prevalence.
Scaling-Up for Impact (SUFI): Unlike many other public health problems, malaria cannot be satisfactorily controlled with incremental methods because its vectors are too efficient. Indirect measures, including the long-tried approach of strengthening the general health system, without concurrent and aggressive malaria control, amounts to business as usual—yielding limited progress, to judge by the results in Africa over the last decade. Successful malaria control requires bold, decisive steps to obtain high coverage quickly. Accordingly, the Booster Program will work aggressively to support clients implementing effective interventions such as ITNs and effective treatment (including ACTs) , facilitating sufficiently high coverage to ensure large scale impact. The Bank’s efforts will fit within the broader framework of the RBM partnership and will build on the recent progress in Africa to increase coverage of essential interventions.
The Program: The Bank’s approach will be proactive while promoting country leadership and ownership. In the initial three-year intensive phase the Booster program will commit approximately US$500 million in IDA allocations to support countries willing and ready to improve and expand their malaria control efforts. In addition, a smaller Regional Allocation is proposed to address issues that have cross-border externalities (operations research, resistance surveillance, anti-counterfeiting measures, et cetera), multi-country malaria control activities, and coordination and implementation bottlenecks across the region. At the end of the initial three years, it is expected that a stock-taking review will be conducted to formulate an expanded second phase program that will seek to consolidate the gains achieved and extend control to remaining endemic areas.
Design: Exact Booster Program activities and targets depend on the needs and baseline coverage levels of individual countries. The health sector is not necessarily the only entry point for supporting malaria control efforts. Indeed, past experience shows that vertical, horizontal, and diagonal mechanisms have to be utilized if malaria is to be controlled. Figure A illustrates some of the Bank’s available instruments.
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