2020 Highlights

In 2020, we rapidly responded to a new threat, COVID-19, while ensuring our programs and investments stayed on track to maximize impact.

NO ONE SHOULD DIE FROM A MOSQUITO BITE

Your partnership and support fuels Malaria No More’s work to mobilize the political commitment, funding, and innovation required to achieve what would be one of the greatest humanitarian accomplishments – eliminating malaria in our lifetimes.

LETTER FROM OUR CEO

To our partners and supporters –

Nothing tests an organization like a crisis—and I’m incredibly proud of how Malaria No More, its partners, and supporters responded in 2020.

In April, as the global scale of the COVID-19 pandemic became clear, the WHO projected that disruptions due to COVID could cause malaria deaths to double globally (to 769,000), putting at risk more than 15 years of progress.

We sprang into action, working with our partners in the U.S. Government to keep the malaria campaigns on track and leverage the remarkable capacities U.S. investments helped build over the past 15 years to fight COVID-19. As a result of these efforts, almost 200 million mosquito nets were delivered in 2020, and we’ve avoided the worst case scenarios.

In the process, we engaged in new groundbreaking projects. This included launching an innovative media campaign in India that reached more than 150 million people, spanning 21 states, to drive timely testing and treatment for fevers in the context of COVID.

We pioneered blended financing approaches, through the establishment of a new Health Finance Coalition, that is mobilizing significant new resources to scale innovations that address Africa’s biggest health challenges, including malaria.

Beyond pandemic preparedness and response, we worked with global health and gender leaders to showcase the “double dividend” that malaria investments pay in terms of health outcomes and gender equity. And we launched the Forecasting Healthy Futures initiative—rooted in East India and West Africa—to demonstrate how weather data and strategies can accelerate progress against mosquito-borne disease.

With your support, we responded—nimbly and with ambition—in the face of the global pandemic. You might even say the pandemic brought out the best in us. I hope later in 2021, we can come together to celebrate the 15th Anniversary of Malaria No More’s founding and our renewed commitment to ending humanity’s oldest disease (malaria) and our newest one (COVID-19).

Thank you, as ever, for your partnership and support.

Sincerely,

Martin Edlund

CEO, Malaria No More

Our Work Isn’t Done

In 2022 there were…

Together, We Can End Malaria

At Malaria No More, we’re focused on ending the world’s oldest, deadliest disease. See the highlights from MNM’s efforts in 2020, made possible by your partnership and support.

Positioning malaria investments as a pillar for pandemic response

In a world dominated by its focus on COVID-19, Malaria No More made a bold case for US prioritization and leadership in the malaria fight. Having successfully advocated for continued increases to the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) and Global Fund 2021 budgets, we positioned malaria investments as a key pillar of COVID response and pandemic preparedness. This included highlighting the Global Fund as well as PMI’s fifteen years of impact building critical health infrastructure, partnerships and country capacities in malaria affected countries. Through a co-hosted event with the African Leaders Malaria Alliance, we engaged African diplomats and PMI to discuss how investments in the malaria fight are improving global health security. This argument tied into global advocacy work with partners in the UK, European Union, Japan and Korea.

15 Years of Impact Read More

Elevating Malaria Elimination in India

With more than 1 billion Indians at-risk of malaria, the monsoon season coincided precipitously with the COVID-19 lockdown, increasing malaria and other mosquito-borne disease risk. Our team in India jumped into action to keep malaria a priority during the pandemic, while continuing to strengthen relationships with key government stakeholders. In June, we launched a first national social media campaign for malaria and MBDs, Bite Ko Mat Lo Lite (Hinglish for “Don’t Take the Bite Lightly”), reaching more than 150 million Indians. Working in close partnership with the Government of Odisha, MNM established an innovative community-level testing and treatment strategy and recruited more than 100 village-based volunteers to promote nightly bednet usage, malaria prevention behaviors, and seek timely testing and treatment.

Connecting Malaria to pressing global development issues – Climate and Gender

The intersection of malaria with climate change and gender equality, two defining issues of our time, created new focus areas and opportunity for Malaria No More. We spearheaded a new initiative, “Forecasting Healthy Futures” bringing together a unique group of global health, technology and public sector partners to use weather data and turn weather obstacles into opportunities towards malaria elimination. FHF also developed a data visualization dashboard for the Government of Odisha to better target interventions and decision making. MNM also worked alongside global health and gender equality partners to explore the urgent and differentiated impacts of malaria on the rights of girls, adolescents, and women. Our work to build an action community that accelerates malaria eradication and gender equality is outlined in this Malaria & Gender report.

Forecasting Healthy Futures Read the Report

Mobilizing private sector investments to address Africa’s health challenges

A new Health Finance Coalition, launched by Malaria No More, is mobilizing private sector investments to address some of Africa’s biggest health challenges. Working with foundation, private and public sector partners, we identified, structured, and financed a US$35 million loan guarantee facility to mitigate the potentially devastating threat of COVID-19 on frontline private health clinics in Africa. This work is one of the first initiatives to address the economic crunch facing private health providers in Africa due to COVID-19. The facility makes these loans available to private, small- and medium enterprises in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda, enabling them to continue offering essential health services – including malaria diagnosis and treatment – to more than 5 million Africans.

Health Finance Coalition Read More