A global pandemic, ongoing international conflict, faltering economies and a worsening climate crisis have left the world craving stability at this moment.
The health of society sits at the centre of this complex web of challenges: a sick nation’s economy will stagnate, its sovereignty will be more exposed, its health system less resilient and its government less able to combat the climate crisis.
This is why governments, like our new Labour government, which fully understand and acknowledge the need for greater stability, must prioritise health.
Take malaria, for example. We saw significant progress in reducing deaths from 864,000 in 2002 to an all-time low of 576,000 in 2019.
Despite being both preventable and treatable, progress has stalled on malaria in recent years with 608,000 people tragically still dying from the disease in 2022 and nearly 250 million cases, according to the World Health Organisation.
Disease and sickness on such a scale has a significant ripple effect across societies.
As our own report showed earlier this year: cutting malaria by 90% by 2030 from 2015 levels could lead to a GDP boost for countries in Africa of nearly $127bn. Turned on its head, this shows the enormous economic damage malaria is doing in Africa in particular, which carries the burden of the disease, as education is stunted, workers take time off sick or productivity drops.
And this is, of course, just one of a wide range of health threats being faced on the continent. As the recent Mpox emergency shows , new crises can appear or resurface quite suddenly to pressure health systems.
Climate change is also contributing to the perfect storm of malaria challenges, as extreme weather events and rising temperatures disrupt malaria programmes and change malaria seasons, making it harder for public health officials to accurately plan resources.
Despite malaria becoming an increasingly mercurial foe, the global science community, with the UK at its heart, is well-placed to re-invigorate the fight to end malaria in our lifetimes.
As a nation with significant life science and development expertise, the UK can continue to play a leading role in this fight back.
It can, for example, back multilateral organisations like the Global Fund and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance to ensure lifesaving interventions reach those who urgently need them.
And it can foster science and innovation in the UK to secure and sustain an ongoing pipeline of tools to fight malaria, like next-generation bed nets, monoclonal antibodies and new vaccines.
It can also continue to forge and strengthen relationships with countries in Africa to act as a trusted and equal partner in combatting the disease.
But to achieve this, our new government will need to get the best out of the Whitehall machine, which is why we’ve pulled together the extensive experiences of five experts ahead of Labour Party conference, in a pamphlet titled ‘The Labour government’s first steps to ending malaria’.
We’ve spoken to ex-Ambassador and Foreign Office insider, Tim Cole, on how best to interact with the department on development issues. Tim Durrant from the Institute for Government provides insight on framing your case to the Treasury effectively.
Joy Phumaphi, ex-Health Minister of Botswana, Executive Secretary of the African Leaders’ Malaria Alliance and global health expert, explains how the government can build and re-build valuable partnerships with countries in Africa.
Justin McBeath, CEO of the Innovative Vector Control Consortium, discusses how best to harness the power of British science against global health threats.
And Romilly Greenhill, CEO of development organisation Bond, explains how to join forces with the development sector and make the most out of the expertise ministers have around them.
We hope this will help new ministers with a focus on global health and international development to navigate government and re-energise the malaria fight, with Malaria No More UK by their side.
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