NEWS RELEASE: A Strategic Investment in Malaria Advocacy Brings Major Returns

26 November 2009
Supporting small scale, community-led advocacy efforts is an extremely cost-effective way of raising local political awareness to ensure government commitment in the fight against malaria. This is the main conclusion of Malaria Consortium’s second Mobilising4Malaria (M4M) case study.   To download the case study, click here.

These successful community-led advocacy efforts were fostered through a series of Innovation Grants to local non-governmental organisations across Africa.  The M4M programme, supported by GlaxoSmithKline’s African Malaria Partnership, not only saw the birth of three national Coalitions Against Malaria in Africa but, in May 2007, expanded its geographic remit and began allocating Malaria Innovation Grants, over three rounds,  The duration of each grant was approximately 12 months.

The Innovation Grants supported ideas and partnerships that reached new audiences in creative ways and tackled difficult issues such as equity, transparency and accountability. Audiences included decision makers at national and regional levels, politicians, media, government ministries, international organisations and local leaders. Seven projects were supported  with grants in Nigeria, Western and Central Africa (a 10-country project), Tanzania, Mozambique, Ghana, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burkina Faso.

Key successes of the projects include:

• Nigeria: the partner substantially boosted the capacity of local civil society by organising a five-day malaria advocacy training session. 35 people representing 28 CSOs were trained.
• Western and Central Africa: media campaigns and malaria alert systems were implemented as well as capacity building with over 65 civil society HIV/AIDS groups.
• Tanzania: 37 MPs were trained in a workshop, and became instrumental in forming a first-of-its kind coalition of Tanzania Parliamentarians Against Malaria (TAPAMA).
• Ghana: a magazine Eyes on Malaria was created, connecting malaria research findings and policy with day to day issues.
• Mozambique: a project focused on mobilising and engaging government representatives and businesses resulted in several enterprises starting to plan malaria control interventions as part of their social responsibility programmes.
• Burkina Faso: the grant supported the founding of a Coalition against Malaria, which began coordinating partners and identifying and launching major activities around World Malaria Day 2009.
• DRC: the project briefed parliamentarians about malaria, resulting in a declaration of engagement on their part. It also trained over 120 civil society groups in advocacy techniques.

The Innovation Grants have been extremely successful, linking with other malaria advocacy initiatives in their respective countries. Many are now attempting to make the transition to fully-fledged national Coalitions Against Malaria in their respective countries.

To learn more about the project visit the Innovations Grants page at
http://www.mobilising4malaria.org