2020 will offer many opportunities for BAAM and the malaria community to make malaria more visible on the global stage, starting with the World Health Assembly in May and followed by the Kigali Global Summit on Malaria and Tropical and Neglected Diseases on 25 June 2020. The Kigali Summit will take place on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), to capitalize on the presence of the Heads of State of those countries who represent almost two-thirds of the global burden of malaria and neglected tropical diseases. The Summit will be hosted by the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Rwanda, and co-organized by the RBM Partnership to End Malaria and Uniting to Combat the NTDs, and will be supported by a wide range of partners, including the African Leaders Malaria Alliance, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the END Fund, Malaria No More UK and the World Health Organization (WHO). In particular, the Summit will call on world leaders to meet the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2018 pledge to halve malaria by 2023 and deliver the political and financial commitments of $1.5bn to end the scourge of neglected tropical diseases.
Dr Abdourahmane Diallo, Chief Executive Officer of the RBM Partnership to End Malaria said: “Commonwealth countries make up over half of all malaria cases and deaths globally. The Kigali Summit will be a crucial moment for leaders to take stock of the progress countries are making towards delivering on the Commonwealth leaders’ commitment made in London two years ago to halve malaria by 2023. There are 650,000 lives dependent on the achievement of this commitment and it is vital to the global elimination targets set for 2030. We will be urging leaders from across the Commonwealth, and beyond, to accelerate action to reach zero malaria.”
The Commonwealth brings together 54 countries, including Rwanda, South Africa, India and others around shared goals for development, democracy and peace. The group meets every two years. The Summit, focused both on malaria and tropical and neglected diseases alongside a Ministerial meeting, represents a great opportunity to bring malaria to the attention of Ministries beyond the Ministers of Health, as the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting will gather Ministers of Trade, Youth, Digital Economy under the overarching theme ‘Delivering a Common Future: Connecting, Innovating, Transforming’. It will also be an opportunity to illustrate that malaria is not only an issue in rural areas of affected countries. In the words of one member of the global malaria advocacy community, “There is a golden opportunity to see how we can strengthen vector control as malaria moves from a rural to an urban disease.”
Later in 2020, the malaria community will gather once again to the Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH), this time in Ontario, Canada, between 15-19 November. Earlier, in September, the 75th United Nations General Assembly will bring together the global community to New York under a theme that is still to be determined.
At the same time, following discussions that started during the last BAAM retreat alongside the Global Fund Replenishment Conference in Lyon in October 2019 and thanks to the continuous collaboration between BAAM and the RBM Partnership, venues that are not traditional global health events will also be explored throughout 2020 as a means to making malaria more visible among new types of audiences. For example, the RBM Partnership will be present at the Global Summit on Agriculture & Organic Farming in Tokyo, Japan, on 17-18 August—a great opportunity to expose the agriculture community to the malaria risks the industry might create, for example through the culture of rice where pools of water are favorable to mosquito breeding. These meetings will also be a way to recruit new members in sectors beyond the pharmaceutical and chemical sectors.
BAAM is looking forward to strengthening its presence at global health events and elevating malaria in new industry sectors!