Funding to malaria prevention has stalled since 2010.[1] It’s misleading to point to GiveWell funding alone. I don’t think it’s particularly surprising that given ~constant funding the progress has slowed. As noted the nets last only a couple of years, and presumably you get diminishing marginal returns when scaling up, as always. I’m not sure exactly how they are counting here, as “other funders” is suspiciously small, but the general point still stands, that the largest donors have stalled over the last decade. WHO estimates for the counterfactual[2] show that just keeping the deaths constant is an achievement in itself (although the counterfactual is of course more uncertain). I think this comes down to population growth and a little bit of climate change, but I haven’t looked into it deeply.
I think there is an argument to be made here, that as the world shifted priorities with the SDGs and funding for the “old” efforts stalled, we unfortunately got a unusually good opportunity in malaria prevention in terms of marginal impact. While just keeping up the pressure doesn’t yield equally spectacular sounding results as the initial ramp up, it’s still likely saving thousands of lives.
World Health Organization. (2023). Funding for malaria control and elimination, 2000–2022, by channel (constant 2022 US$) [Figure 6.4]. In World Malaria Report 2023 (p. 49). WHO.
Funding to malaria prevention has stalled since 2010.[1] It’s misleading to point to GiveWell funding alone. I don’t think it’s particularly surprising that given ~constant funding the progress has slowed. As noted the nets last only a couple of years, and presumably you get diminishing marginal returns when scaling up, as always. I’m not sure exactly how they are counting here, as “other funders” is suspiciously small, but the general point still stands, that the largest donors have stalled over the last decade. WHO estimates for the counterfactual[2] show that just keeping the deaths constant is an achievement in itself (although the counterfactual is of course more uncertain). I think this comes down to population growth and a little bit of climate change, but I haven’t looked into it deeply.
I think there is an argument to be made here, that as the world shifted priorities with the SDGs and funding for the “old” efforts stalled, we unfortunately got a unusually good opportunity in malaria prevention in terms of marginal impact. While just keeping up the pressure doesn’t yield equally spectacular sounding results as the initial ramp up, it’s still likely saving thousands of lives.
World Health Organization. (2023). Funding for malaria control and elimination, 2000–2022, by channel (constant 2022 US$) [Figure 6.4]. In World Malaria Report 2023 (p. 49). WHO.
World Health Organization. (2023). WHO methods for estimating cases and deaths averted. In World Malaria Report 2023 (p. 123), Annex 1. WHO.
Thanks for the comment, Håkon! I strongly upvoted it.