| September 7, 2005—The World Bank is sponsoring a summit in Paris in a bid to secure more resources and better coordination in the fight against malaria in Africa. The Bank’s Vice President for the Africa Region, Gobind Nankani, says the summit will bring together African health ministers and other development agencies such as the Global Fund, the World Health Organization as well as OECD partners. “The World Bank is following up on a promise it made several months ago to increase our assistance to Africa on the malaria effort, “Nankani says. “But we can’t do it alone.” Nankani, who’ll chair the summit, says while it’s clear African Governments and development agencies have increased their spending on malaria over the past few years, much more needs to be done. “It’s clear that an additional effort of at least a US$1 billion dollars extra each year is needed and this needs to be done in a coordinated manner. So bringing together these additional resources, and the technical skills and coordination will be absolutely essential to meeting the goals of fighting malaria in Africa.” The Bank hopes increased support to fight malaria will translate into people gaining easier access to insecticide treated bed nets as well as prompt access to new anti-malarial drugs to help control a disease which kills more than a million people each year.
Taking Its Toll
Nankani describes the social and economic costs of malaria on Africa as enormous. “First let me say the social costs are tremendous. Every 30 seconds an African child dies on account of malaria, “he says. “Hundreds of thousands of people suffer because of the burden of malaria. In addition, the economic costs are very severe. Our estimate is that some US$12 billion a year is lost in Africa due to malaria and economic growth is reduced by about one point two percent a year.” “For many countries, controlling malaria is crucial to reducing the human suffering and deaths of mothers and young children, and securing economic growth.” Bank Action For its part, the World Bank renewed its assault on malaria with the launch in April of a Global Partnership Strategy and Booster Program to counteract what it described as “the inadequacy of global efforts to control malaria and the modesty of the Bank’s current efforts relative to its potential.” As a sign that strategy has moved from words to action, the Bank’s Board of Executive Directors has just approved a major grant – worth US$150 million – for the Democratic Republic of Congo – which contains a US$30 million dollars specifically targeted to fighting malaria. (See related story) The aim of the malaria component of the project is to get at least two insecticide treated nets in households in more than 80 health zones in the country, as well as enable people access to effective and prompt anti-malarial treatment. The DRC is a country in which less than one percent of all children sleep under an insecticide treated bed net. Malaria is the number one killer of children in DRC, accounting for 40 percent of child deaths. Its estimated increased use of the long lasting bed nets alone could slash child deaths by as much as one fifth. “This is just one example. We’ve recently also boosted our efforts in Eritrea which has shown how successfully an African country can make progress in the fight against malaria,” Nankani says. “We are in discussions about preparing new operations in a number of countries including Zambia and Burkina Faso and beyond those countries like Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria.” “In fact, I understand a team is headed to Nigeria straight from the summit.”
Booster Program
The Booster Program is the Bank’s contribution to the Roll Back Malaria effort in Africa. Nankani says the Bank has crafted, with its key technical partners such as the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control, a program that will cover about 17 countries with about US$500 million over three years. That part of the program has been called the “intensive phase” and will be supported by a smaller regional approach which will provide about US$160 million for activities such as the monitoring of insecticide and drug resistances as well as operations research. Other countries where the Bank expects talks with governments over coming months about increased Bank support include Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. The new Bank malaria strategy notes that in Tanzania for example, when the use of insecticide treated bed nets for infants increased from 10 to more than 50 percent, child survival rates rose by 27 percent. Anemia dropped by 63 percent. Senior Vice-President for the Bank’s Human Development Network, Jean-Louis Sarbib, says countries that are getting malaria slowly but surely under control show how strong political leadership, community involvement and the right tools such as treated bed nets, indoor spraying and anti-malarial drugs are essential ingredients in making malaria an entirely preventable and treatable disease. “And the more you lessen the burden of treating malaria on the health system – in Zambia for example, 40 percent of outpatients come to the hospital or the clinic because of malaria – the more you automatically improve the ability of a country’s health system to deal with other diseases as well,” Sarbib says.
Summit Hopes
Nankani says his hopes for the Paris summit are two-fold. “Firstly we would be very interested in making sure that all of us as partners pull together and try and bring as much in the way of additional resources behind African Governments in their fight against malaria. “But equally important is the fact that we need to do this in a coordinated way, focusing on outcomes and results, which country governments will be taking the lead on and together monitoring results as well as our behaviors to ensure this kind of coordination and pulling in one direction.” |
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