Engaging The Private Sector In Achieving Zero Malaria - 2021 ASTMH Annual Meeting
The ongoing fight against malaria has resulted in a 60% decrease in deaths from malaria and a 40% drop in malaria cases over the last two decades (2000-2020). However, malaria continues to remain a major health issue in many countries, with pregnant women and children under 5 being the most at risk. Thus, the journey towards elimination is far from over, and countries and development partners are increasingly looking at market-based approaches and investments from the private sector to help bridge gaps in both resource and expertise to sustain results to date and accelerate progress. The private sector is engaged in malaria control through various ways. For example, strengthened public-private partnerships (PPP) enable resource mobilization to scale up implementation of effective malaria interventions. However, many of their activities are not tracked by National Malaria Control Programs and this lack of information often prevents alignment with national goals and strategies.
Given the important role of the private sector in the sustainable development of countries, and in line with USAID’s Private Sector Engagement (PSE) Policy, the USAID-funded Local Health System Sustainability project is implementing a PMI-funded activity in four selected PMI priority countries, Cote d’Ivoire, DRC, Liberia, and Uganda, to: 1- do a landscape analysis of private sector contributions to malaria programming, and 2- Identify potential strategic opportunities to strengthen PSE. The methodology for this activity is a mix of literature review and in-country key informant interviews. The results of this activity are expected in August 2021.
In each country we will develop a set of strategies to engage the private sector more efficiently and ultimately accelerate progress towards malaria elimination. This activity will also produce global learnings on PSE for malaria programing, especially the contextual factors to account for when designing collaborative activities with the private sector and advocating for more private sector funding for malaria in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.