World Leaders Make an Unprecedented Commitment to Fight Malaria

On September 25, 2008 world leaders gathered at the 2008 Millennium Development Goals Malaria Summit in New York City to celebrate a game-changing $3 billion commitment to ending malaria from a collection of organizations and governments.

Read the Summary Report for the summit. 

Today's announcement build on the momentum of the international malaria movement which has been growing rapidly since World Malaria Day in April 2008, when UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the world to end deaths from malaria as quickly as possible.

The funding commitments will support rapid implementation of the Global Malaria Action Plan, which was launched today by the Roll Back Malaria Partnership with the broad support of a united malaria community. Developed with input from more than 250 malaria experts, the Global Malaria Action Plan is the first-ever comprehensive blueprint for global malaria control. The Plan demonstrates that by achieving the Secretary-General's call for full coverage of malaria interventions by 2010, it is possible to save more than 4.2 million lives by 2015 and lay the foundation for a longer term effort to eradicate the disease.

The fight is not over yet, and there is still much work to be done to end malaria, but the funding announced today takes us a giant step closer to turning our hopes for an end to malaria into a reality.

Please consider helping this momentum continue by making a gift of mosquito nets, still the most effective means of stopping malaria. Every net counts because every life counts.

Watch the webcast of the event (available after 9 a.m. EST on September 26, 2008)

See video highights from the event, courtesy of the Case Foundation

Read the Wall Street Journal coverage of the event

The $3 Billion Details:

The new commitments announced today, totaling $3 billion, include:

• Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria: $1.62 billion over two years in new grants for malaria submitted to its Board for approval in November, including plans for distribution of 100 million additional bed nets. 
• World Bank: $1.1 billion to expand the Malaria Booster Program, which supports the rapid scale-up of malaria programs in Africa.
• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:  $168.7 million to the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative for research on a new generation of malaria vaccines.
• UK Department for International Development:  £40 million pledge to support the Affordable Medicines Facility for Malaria, which the UK encourages the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to host. Additionally, commitment to an increase in malaria R&D funding to at least £5 million per year by 2010 and to provide 20 million of the 125 million bed nets that are needed to close the global bed net gap.
• Marathon Oil / Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, TB, and Malaria / Republic of Equatorial Guinea: Coalition member Marathon Oil, its business partners and the Republic of Equatorial Guinea will co-invest $28 million over five years to extend a highly successful nationwide malaria control program. The commitment is a lead gift for a capital campaign orchestrated by the Coalition, Malaria No More and the UN Foundation which leverages the leadership of the world’s most prominent business leaders to raise $100 million by the end of 2010.
• UN High Commission for Refugees / United Nations Foundation: $2 million grant to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to meet the urgent need for long-lasting, insecticide-treated bed nets in temporary refugee camps across Africa. Working together, in 2008-2009, the partnership will distribute these bed nets in eight African countries, including Côte d'Ivoire and the Central African Republic in 2008.
• Sesame Workshop/Mattel/Malaria No More/Save the Children: $2 million program to provide Sesame Street-themed malaria education materials and programming to children and parents in Tanzania and Zambia in order to promote bed net usage and overall malaria prevention and treatment.

Global Malaria Action Plan Provides New Blueprint for Success

The Global Malaria Action Plan lays out a detailed course of action to dramatically reduce malaria by achieving three goals:

• Short term:  Reduce deaths and illness from malaria by half from 2000 levels, by scaling up access to bed nets, indoor spraying, diagnosis and treatment, including preventive treatment for pregnant women, for all in need by 2010.
• Medium term:  Reduce the number of malaria deaths to near zero by 2015, through sustained universal coverage with proven anti-malaria tools.
• Long term:  Maintain near-zero deaths worldwide while eliminating malaria transmission in key countries, with the ultimate goal of eradicating malaria completely with new tools and strategies.