Advocating for Malaria Elimination
There have been massive gains in malaria control and there is increasing recognition of the importance of malaria elimination as a long-term goal. Once effective control is sustained, many countries are ready to consider elimination. However, it remains difficult to facilitate the transition to elimination without the long-term political and financial support that elimination requires.
Advocacy is an important tool that the global malaria community should use to support the transition to elimination, and sustain gains made in malaria control. Advocacy can leverage political commitment, create new funding opportunities and support partnerships. These lessons highlight a range of challenges and opportunities for the malaria community. The major challenges relate to obtaining a global consensus to endorse a defined strategy focusing on elimination, and developing tools to support the business case. Economic modelling is required to develop robust cost-benefit modelling that focuses on elimination targets. This is a core need for ongoing elimination advocacy. Some of these lessons involve extending existing efforts. For example, the malaria community has a history of developing messages and communications tools; the current opportunity is to extend this work to incorporate elimination targets. Similarly, there are a number of global and regional malaria partnerships that could provide a platform for elimination advocacy - these partnerships need to be provided with the mandate to focus on elimination, with a clear structure of coordination. Most importantly, these lessons also highlight opportunities for the malaria community to embrace new approaches. Advocates for malaria elimination can work within developmental frameworks - building synergies with other health and social programming - to maximize outcomes from investment and prevent competition for increasingly scarce resources. Engaging effectively with communities is vital for building support and optimizing local implementation that is essential for effective long-term programming.
Malaria elimination is a dynamic processes. Elimination advocacy will need to adapt to new technologies and research findings, emerging successes and challenges, changes in the socio-political landscape of eliminating countries, and changes in global health financing. The global malaria community needs to work together, ensuring the early steps towards the end goal of malaria elimination are taken.
Conclusion
There have been massive gains in malaria control and there is increasing recognition of the importance of malaria elimination as a long-term goal. Once effective control is sustained, many countries are ready to consider elimination. However, it remains difficult to facilitate the transition to elimination without the long-term political and financial support that elimination requires.
Advocacy is an important tool that the global malaria community should use to support the transition to elimination, and sustain gains made in malaria control. Advocacy can leverage political commitment, create new funding opportunities and support partnerships. These lessons highlight a range of challenges and opportunities for the malaria community. The major challenges relate to obtaining a global consensus to endorse a defined strategy focusing on elimination, and developing tools to support the business case. Economic modelling is required to develop robust cost-benefit modelling that focuses on elimination targets. This is a core need for ongoing elimination advocacy. Some of these lessons involve extending existing efforts. For example, the malaria community has a history of developing messages and communications tools; the current opportunity is to extend this work to incorporate elimination targets. Similarly, there are a number of global and regional malaria partnerships that could provide a platform for elimination advocacy - these partnerships need to be provided with the mandate to focus on elimination, with a clear structure of coordination. Most importantly, these lessons also highlight opportunities for the malaria community to embrace new approaches. Advocates for malaria elimination can work within developmental frameworks - building synergies with other health and social programming - to maximize outcomes from investment and prevent competition for increasingly scarce resources. Engaging effectively with communities is vital for building support and optimizing local implementation that is essential for effective long-term programming.
Malaria elimination is a dynamic processes. Elimination advocacy will need to adapt to new technologies and research findings, emerging successes and challenges, changes in the socio-political landscape of eliminating countries, and changes in global health financing. The global malaria community needs to work together, ensuring the early steps towards the end goal of malaria elimination are taken.
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