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Corporate Responsibility Report 2008

Combating malaria – Africa Malaria Partnership

Every year up to 500 million people are affected by malaria and over one million die from it, mostly young children in Africa. But the disease can be prevented by controlling the breeding of mosquitoes and using low-cost measures such as insecticide-treated nets. Malaria can be cured if treated promptly with effective medicines.

We established the African Malaria Partnership in 2001 to improve the prevention and access to treatment of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. Since then we have invested over $3 million in initiatives to combat the disease.

2008 was the final year of our three-year grant to support Mobilising for Malaria, an advocacy initiative to generate greater awareness, political commitment and sustained funding for malaria in Europe and Africa. National Coalitions Against Malaria have now been launched in the UK, Belgium, France, Ethiopia and Cameroon bringing together advocates and activists from the public sector, NGOs, the media, the private sector and the political, academic and scientific communities.

Part of this initiative was the award of innovation grants to civil society organisations in Africa to boost advocacy efforts and inspire African civil society organisations and media to become leaders in the fight against malaria in their own countries. Grants were awarded to civil organisations in Nigeria, Tanzania, Ghana, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of Congo and Burkina Faso.

We supported a journalist competition run by the Guardian, a British newspaper, to raise awareness of issues faced by people with malaria and LF. Their global web site attracted 20,000 unique visitors and the winning stories were published in two dedicated supplements.

Read more about our malaria programmes.