The first consultative meeting of the African representatives on the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership Board got underway Tuesday 25 February 2003 in Harare, Zimbabwe, with a call on participants to ensure the strengthening of national capacity, country ownership and sustainability of malaria control programmes in the Region.

Addressing the meeting on behalf of the WHO Regional Director for Africa, the Director of the Division of Communicable Diseases Prevention and Control at the Regional Office, Dr Antoine Kaboré, exhorted the African representatives on the Board to project and promote the African cause in the decision-making processes of the 17-member body.

"Given that Africa bears the greatest burden of malaria in the world, it is imperative that our representatives bring this fact to bear on all discussions and decisions of the Board, particularly on those related to the allocation of resources - human, financial and technical", Dr Kaboré said.

He observed that some successes had been achieved in malaria prevention and control in Africa, and urged the African representatives on the Board to make a case for the acknowledgement of, and support for, the replication and expansion of these successes in the Region.

The RBM Partnership Board was established in 2002 in an effort to address the recommendations made by the RBM External Evaluation to create governance structures designed to create the conditions for better coordination, advocacy and capacity building to enhance overall efforts at malaria prevention and control worldwide.

The Board is made up of representatives of various constituencies, including governments of malaria-endemic countries which have been allocated five seats, three of which are occupied by Ghana, Senegal and Zambia, currently Africa's representatives on the Board.

In her remarks, the Executive Secretary of the RBM Partnership Secretariat, Dr Fatoumata Nafo-Traoré, underlined the need for the African representatives to provide quality inputs to the Board's work with the aim of attracting more financial and other resources for the fight against malaria in Africa, which carries more than 90 per cent of the global burden of the disease.

She stated that such resources were available, among others, at the Global Fund for the Fight Against HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis. The Fund, she added, had already committed $253 million over two years, and $503 million over five years, to the prevention and control of these communicable diseases in 26 African countries.

Dr Traoré listed the objectives of the meeting as including: updating participants from African malaria-endemic countries on the recent developments at the RBM Partnership; agreeing mechanisms for consultation, communication, information-sharing and representation; and proposing strategies to strengthen the RBM partnership at country level.

The two-day meeting is being attended by delegates from Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia and Zimbabwe, as well as officials from the RBM Partnership Secretariat and the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa.

For further information, please contact 
Malaria Unit 
Division of Prevention and Control of Communicable Diseases
WHO Regional Office for Africa 
P.O. Box BE 773, Belvedere, Harare Zimbabwe