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To decide is to win
Together we can make malaria a disease of the past
"A bridge between North and South to eradicate Malaria from political willingness to results"

The work of the French coalition over the last year resulted in a three day event in Paris from the 9-11th September where French MPs and Ministers stated their ongoing support for the fight against malaria. These were part of a series of five events from the 9-28th September, organised by Friends of the Global Fund Europe along with the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB & Malaria (GFATM) and Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership, in order to raise awareness of malaria and the means to fight it.

• September 9th - Parliamentarians roundtable
• September 9th - Inaugauration of malaria photo exhibition
• September 10th - Coalition meeting
• September 11th - Private sector & AMFm meetings

September 9th - a round table brought together members of parliament from France, Europe and developing countries to discuss financing needs in the fight against malaria and challenges that need to be overcome.

This roundtable was held at the , where the Henriette Martinex, Deputy of Hautes-Alphes, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Populations & Development opened the session and then it was chaired by Patrick Pipen, a journalist. The meeting was held in both French and English.

The first roundtable had five speakers who spoke on the following issues:

• Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director of the GFATM spoke on financing the fight against malaria and its successes. As well as outlining GFATM's contributions to malaria and the way it worked he also discussed the Affordable Medicines Facility for malaria, which GFATM has accepted to manage at the request of the RBM partnership.
• Dr Awa-Marie Coll-Seck, executive director of RBM, spoke on the worldwide impact of malaria, both in terms of deaths and in terms economic effects. She also talked about the work of the RBM partnership and notable successes in countries such as Eritrea & Ethiopia in bringing down malaria. She finished by announcing the forthcoming launch of the Global Malaria Action Plan.
• Stephen O'Brien MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Malaria, spoke on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Health, Malaria & Poverty. He highlighted the centrality of health to the MDGs and the need to step up advocacy in the north on issues such as delivery. He ended by noting the importance of success stories in northern advocacy and the need for the northern coalitions to further join up their efforts.
• Fidel Lopez Alvarez, Spanish ambassador in charge of relations with the (GFATM) also spoke on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Health, Malaria & Poverty. He highlighted the engagement of the Spanish government to contribute funds in the fight against malaria, especially in the last couple of years and the impact this would have on malaria endemic countries.
• Louis-Charles Viossat, the French Ambassador in charge of the fight against AIDS and communicable disease also spoke on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Health, Malaria & Poverty. He highlighted France's interest and political engagement in the fight against the three key diseases and pointed out some bottlenecks limiting access to funds.

The second roundtable was regarding how to contribute to the generalization of successful experiences:

• Kessile Tchalla, a Health Minister from Benin, discussed Southern countries and building on successful stories. He explained that what was required was not only treatment but behaviour change in malaria endemic countries. He gave the example of Benin where they have engaged all 5000 villages to participate actively in the fight against malaria because scarcity of bed nets.
• Philippe Duneton, Executive Secretary, UNITAID spoke on Access to treatment and the challenges facing AMFm. After giving some background and information on UNITAID, he explained that UNITAID has engaged in increasing access to ACTs and that they are advocating for access to rapid diagnostic tests.
• Michele Barzach, former health minister & President of the Friends of the Global Fund Europe spoke on Partnerships and political mobilization. After explaining about the various coalitions, she went on to discuss vital groups that needed to be partnered with in the fight against malaria (women's groups, research institutions and those working towards a vaccine).

To download the programme from this event, click here.

September 9th - Inauguration of Photo exhibition entitled "Bad Air" on the Pont des Arts in Paris.

The meeting at the National Assembly was followed by the opening of a malaria photo exhibition by William Daniels on one of the main bridges in Paris, the Pont des Arts. It was attended by key figures including former President Jacques Chirac, members of President Sarkozy's cabinet, Michel Kazatchine, Executive Director of the Global Fund, Ray Chambers, UN Special Envoy on Malaria, Dr Awa Coll Seck, Executive Director of RBM, and other key French Ministers. There were also numerous Ministers and MPs from various countries such as Benin, Tanzania etc and the event was covered by numerous media outlets. The inauguration of the photo exhibition was followed by a reception at which most of the above spoke and pledged their support in the fight against malaria. Some of the photos were of Malaria Consortium projects in Uganda and all of them were compiled in a book which was made available during the reception.  

September 10th - a meeting brought together national coalitions fighting malaria both from Europe and countries in the South, so that they could share experiences and launch a partnership.

On the 10th September the various coalitions met for an all day conference on how to effectively work together to fight against malaria. Representatives from all the coalitions (Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Germany, France, and Britain) were present to share experiences, successes and challenges in order to work better together. There were also representatives from some of the Advocacy Innovation Grants of the Mobilising4Malaria programme.

To download the full programme from this day, click here.

The following Malaria Consortium staff, associates & M4M representatives spoke/made presentations during the day:

• Regina Duarte, Manager of the Coalition against Malaria in Mozambique, spoke specifically on Mozambique during the "Diversities and originalities of the Coalitions' Model, successes and challenges in the North and in the South" roundtable and also spoke later in the day during the session on "What kind of collaboration between the various coalitions against malaria in the North and in the South" and how we advocate together. She stressed that there were so many good initiatives to fight malaria but too few links and therefore the need for better connections and information sharing between partners was vital. See Regina's presentation Mozambique: a Coalition by another name
• Fuya G Kitembe, Member of the Tanzanian Parliament & Secretary of Tapama (Parliamentary Alliance against Malaria of Tanzania), spoke during the session "The role of parliamentarians with the coalitions against malaria and their collaboration with civil society organizations". He emphasized the great need in Tanzania for such collaboration between civil society and parliamentarians. His organisation is being supported by a Malaria Advocacy Innovation Grant from Mobilising4Malaria.
• Sunil Mehra, Executive Director of the Malaria Consortium, spoke twice during the day, outlining not only some of the work of the UK Coalition Against Malaria (and showing a presentation from its launch in 2006) but emphasizing how the advocacy work has spread since then and the Paris event being a culmination of a vision to bring together north and south in an International Coalition Against Malaria.
• Agonafer Tekalegne, Manager of the Ethiopian Coalition against Malaria and of the Ethiopian Coalition of Media, also spoke twice during the day, introducing the Ethiopian coalition, its successes, & challenges but also urging people to move towards an International Coalition Against Malaria because of the benefits it would bring of having a unified voice against the disease.
• Esther Tallah, Manager of the Cameroon Coalition against Malaria, spoke twice, firstly introducing the work of the Cameroon coalition, showing its members, activities etc and then joining Regina Duarte for the afternoon session on How we advocate together. She particularly highlighted the need to integrate malaria within other areas in order to bring in more partners in the fight against malaria. She explained how the Cameroon coalition was doing this with members who focused for example on HIV.
• Stephen O'Brien MP, Shadow Health Minister & Chair of UK All Party Parliamentary Malaria Group spoke during the session "The role of parliamentarians with the coalitions against malaria and their collaboration with civil society organizations". He explained that the benefit of such groups in parliament are that they reach across parties and therefore above party politics. He also noted that it was important to make the links about malaria being linked to the overall poverty agenda.
• Claudia Manjate, Advocacy Officer for the Mozambique Coalition against Malaria, spoke during the session entitled "Technical expertise and capacity strengthening". She again emphasized how the Mozambique coalition enables its members who haven't worked on malaria to build their capacity in this area. However she stressed the need for external assistance and technical expertise in order to help in this regard.

On September 11th two additional events took place:

• A breakfast meeting discussed the role of private sector companies and of co-investment initiatives in the fight against malaria
• Researchers in human, economic and social sciences will draw up recommendations on a new mechanism to provide access to anti malaria medication for the very poorest (AMFm).