I. Malaria today
1. Introduction to the Global Malaria Action Plan
The Global Malaria Action Plan (GMAP) has been created by the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership, the global coordinating body for fighting malaria. The RBM Partnership comprises all malaria-endemic countries, bilateral and multilateral development partners, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, community-based organizations, foundations, and research and academic institutions involved in malaria control as well as the RBM Secretariat, Working Groups, and Sub-Regional Networks.
The RBM Board recommended that a Global Malaria Action Plan be developed through an in-depth consultative process. Accordingly, the RBM Partnership developed the plan with the involvement of over 250 individuals from endemic countries, global partner organizations, and experts from a diverse set of fields ranging from economics to malaria control to epidemiology. The input and advice of these contributors have been invaluable in the creation and revision of the plan. A list of all contributors can be found in Appendix 1.
The purpose of the Global Malaria Action Plan is to foster agreement among all partners around the goals, strategy, and activities that the RBM Partnership will pursue, and to clearly lay out those goals, strategies, and activities. The plan will maximize the impact of the malaria community's work by guiding the prioritization of resources and by strengthening the alignment across and effectiveness of various initiatives. The GMAP may influence the activities of partners and countries by supporting the definition of normative policy, the creation of country plans, and the development of implementation plans of individual partners. However, those activities remain the responsibility of countries and partners.
Many areas of ongoing work are represented in this plan. As they evolve, they will further influence the way that the RBM Partnership addresses malaria. Therefore, this action plan is a living document: it will be updated with new information and will incorporate newly identified needs on an ongoing basis through the RBM website and through periodic revisions.
The plan is split into four parts.
- Part I: Malaria Today briefly describes the vision and targets of the RBM Partnership, the current global burden and the current funding.
- Part II: The Global Strategy articulates the near-term, mid-term and long-term strategy to overcome malaria. This section focuses on what needs to be done globally, and is intended to provide a global vision beyond what the RBM Partnership alone can do. This section also estimates the costs and benefits of the global strategy.
- Part III: Regional Strategies explores what the global strategy means for Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Americas, and the Middle East and Eurasia. It provides a short overview of malaria and malaria control in each region, and then outlines what it would take for each region to achieve the targets.
- Part IV: The Role of the RBM Partnership highlights what the RBM Partnership will do to achieve its targets.
