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ACAM Achievements in 2004
In 2004, ACAM's second year of operations and its
first year of operations under the ACAM designation as a contract recipient,
the number of contracts and contractors increased significantly. For
the first time, ACAM became more involved with relief efforts related
to malaria. A brief summary of these consultancies are as follows:
- AED for follow-up on a earlier Child Survival consultancy in Nigeria
- GlaxoSmithkline for fellowship to INTRAC
Oxford, England to study Organizational Development fo NGOs
- CORE Group for FreshAir Malaria Workshop in Accra,
Ghana
- Vestergaard-Frandsen to attend DIHAD 2004 in
Dubai for Abstract presentation
- One World consultancy for Enteric Vaccine meeting
at Airlie House, Virginia
- CORE Group for FreshAir malaria workshop in Dar
es Salaam, Tanzania
- CORE for FreshAir workshop in Bo, Sierra Leone
- MENTOR for consultancy in Monrovia, Liberia for
transition from relief to development
- CORE Group for representation to AFRO region IMCI-RBM
annual joint meeting in Maputo, Mozambique
- CORE Group for FreshAir workshop in Nairobi, Kenya
and follow-up on collaboration with Vestergaard-Frandsen in Kisii
District, Kenya
- CORE Group for representation at strategic Child
Survival meeting in Phnom Phen, Cambodia.
In addition, there were opportunities for participation in CORE’s
Malaria Working Group tasks. As result of these multiple consultancies,
ACAM was able to show its first financially solvent year in 2004.
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Nurturing RBM Secretariats
Coupling Technical Expertise With Management & Implementation Capability
March 2005
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ACAM with NAIMA+ NGOs successfully hosts Collaborative Malaria Workshop with MISAU, Donors and Private Sector Partners
Malaria threatens almost half of humanity, annually infecting up to 500 million people and claiming an estimated 3 million lives. Sub-Saharan Africa is hardest hit by the disease; here, malaria kills a child every 30 seconds. Mozambique is among the ten nations most affected by malaria. Stable transmission rates make malaria Mozambique’s primary cause of morbidity and mortality, resulting in an estimated 44,000-67,000 malaria-specific deaths per year across all age groups. It accounts for 40% of all outpatient consultations, 60% of pediatric in-patients and a third of all hospital deaths.
At the Kaya-Kwanga Hotel in Maputo, representatives from government, multilateral agencies, and the nongovernmental and private sectors met to discuss recent developments in malarial prevention and treatment interventions and national policy, in addition to formulating “next steps” to defeat the disease through improved collaboration. The meeting took place on Friday, April 15, 2005 with thirty-four participants from twenty-seven organizations attending the all-day event.
The Workshop was sponsored by ACAM (African Communities Against Malaria) an NGO seeking to strengthen NGO collaboration for malaria at African national levels in collaboration with NAIMA+, a collaborative group of international NGOs working primarily in HIV/AIDS. MISAU and international partners of NAIMA+ contributed to the agenda as did WHO, UNICEF, USAID, JICA and LDSI. GlaxoSmith Kline, Syngenta and Proserve provided logistical support as well.
The goal was to mobilize NGO participation and contributions to confront malaria in Mozambique in collaboration with other public and private actors committed to reducing the incidence and impact of malaria. The workshop emphasized the role non-governmental organizations can play in assisting the Ministry of Health to implement Mozambique’s National Malaria Strategy. Participants also had an opportunity to meet with representatives of private sector companies who make or market anti-malarial products, in addition to MISAU representatives of the National Malaria Control Program and major technical assistance organizations working for malaria control in Mozambique.
The session was opened by Bishop Sengulane of the Anglican Church who challenged the participants to move toward elimination of malaria as a major killer of children and adults in this country. The key learning objectives were set forth as:
- To be informed concerning the state-of-the art information of the Roll Back Malaria Initiative in Mozambique focusing on the burden of disease on the health system, communities and households,
- To study the national malaria country strategy, including drug policies for case management of children, insecticide treated materials and vector control, and treatment for pregnant women,
- To learn about the clinical interaction between malaria and HIV/AIDS infections,
- To exchange information with MISAU and major donors concerning the range of NGO program activities to address malaria,
- Finally, to identify potential partners with whom their organizations can work and engaged in initial discussions with them about potential collaboration.
Dr. Francisco Saute, MISAU NMCP director, provided an in-depth summary of the national malaria program and policies and engaged in a lively question and answer session with the participants. This was followed by presentations from representatives of WHO, UNICEF, USAID, JICA, and LDSI who outlined their respective support to the national efforts with emphasis on the role of NGOs. This was followed by several NGOs, namely, World Vision, World Relief, CUAMM, HAI, and PSI who presented summaries of their field programs with lessons learned from their years of experience. Finally, Dr. Larry Casazza, ACAM director, summarized the state of the art information regarding the clinical interaction between malaria and HIV/AIDS. This information concluded with the need to strive to integrate programming for these two diseases because of their strong clinical inter-relatedness.
Finally, the participants from MISAU, the NGOs, and technical and financial donors finished the day in a small group exercise identifying specific next steps to be taken to strengthen the collaboration with MISAU in Roll Back Malaria efforts in Mozambique.
The meeting was closed by Dr.Saute, MISAU NMCP director, who expressed his appreciation for the open sharing and obvious willingness on the part on NGOs to scale up Malaria programs in the country.
For more details and a copy of a CD-ROM containing all the presentations together with other important RBM technical references, please contact Chiara Panaroni at naima@tvcabo,co.mz
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"ACAM contributes community/household perspective to Presidential Initiative Against Malaria"
July 25, 2005
How to get off a Dead Horse
Most recently, ACAM has been working closer to "home" , namely, with the House and Senate staff teams working on the language for the new legislation of the Presidential Initiative against Malaria. Ironically, the experience we have seen in our national efforts to respond to the Hurricanes hitting the Gulf coast has opened the discussion to considerations of the value of local resources to be fully engaged in any major national agenda.
Senator Brownback has lead the efforts in the Senate for the US$1.2 billion Presidential Initiative against Malaria. And the legislative language for the implementation of these funds needs to specifically recognize the involvement of NGOs already working at the community level. This will call for new coordination among global, Regional and national players to be certain that the results envisioned in the measurable objectives are valid, informative and lead to improved management practices starting at the community level.
I share with you a PowerPoint presentation I have discussed both with the Senator's staff together with National Security Council (NSC) staff and the House side who are involved in the efforts. The Dead Horse analogy comes from a course I recently took with Henry Mosley and Ben Lozare at Johns Hopkins sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health. The course material, taken from Peter Senge's, "The Fifth Discipline",(a methodology used by Fortune 500 companies for over the past decade) talks about the many faulty attempts to redress a problem that is not responding to our best efforts. Some of them are:
- buy a stronger whip
- change performance criteria for the horse
- increase funding
- site visits to see how others ride a dead horse
- change riders.
- hire a consultant to show you how to ride a dead horse.
While this may be humorous, it does carry a truth as well. I know we can do better for those whose silent voices we seek to bring to the ears of those who can make difference in our work.
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The Impact of Malaria on Health in Africa and its Interaction with HIV/AIDS: The Potential for NGOs to strengthen Civil Society for Sustainable Results
September 20, 2005
CDN Webcast Presentation
This presentation is a compilation of
information that acknowledges the contribution
of CDC, USAID, the CORE Group and the
Advisory Board of ACAM.
I thank you.
© 2006 ACAM. All Rights Reserved.
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