Thanks for the post Rachel! I admire you looking into the topic.
However, one to add is that AMF monitors net usage uniquely stringently and this likely leads to far fewer people using the nets for fishing. (or at least they did until 2015)
From a 2015 article: However, AMF takes a number of steps to stop misuse. We believe that each of them has contributed to the success of our distributions.
Malaria education is key. We work closely with local health officials, the front line health teams and the village and community leaders, to ensure the community is fully aware of the connection between sleeping under intact nets and preventing malaria.
AMF uses extremely rigorous pre-distribution surveys to determine precise net needs, followed by independent checks when the nets are given out to ensure no nets are diverted away from households that need them.
AMF conducts post-distribution check-ups to ensure nets are being used as intended every 6-months during the 3 years following a distribution. People are informed that these checks will be made by random selection, and via unnannounced visits. This gives us a data-driven view of where the nets are and whether they are being used properly. We publish all the data we collect: example here. This type of follow up work is currently unique to AMF, although we hope the practice will become more widespread where it is feasible.
Given that AMF is the main bednet distributor that EAs give to (Malaria Consortium distributes medicine), I think the negative impact of EA-influenced bednet distribution is lower than one might assume from your post!
Thank you for adding this clarification! It’s good to determine whether EA-driven funds are unlikely to be substantially exacerbating the issue. Other bednet distributors besides AMF may have worse outcome tracking methods but that is outside of the EA community scope to discipline.
One minor caveat to your clarification is that many of the nets are reused for fishing only after they are considered too worn out for bednet use, at which point even distributors using AMF’s methodology may no longer be tracking their utilization.
Noting that even with AMF’s tracking methodology I’m not seeing strong evidence that nets distributed are not being diverted even within AMF’s tracking period:
For example, this survey shows about 36% utilization as intended at the 18 month mark. Since they don’t need to be brand new to be used as fishing nets, some portion of the other 64% might be serving an economically productive second life.
https://www.againstmalaria.com/Distribution1.aspx?ProposalID=194
(The link to underlying data sadly appears to be broken at the moment, and no detailed report is provided, only the overview.)
Also, AMF has documented far fewer surveys than ‘monitor every distribution effort every six months for three years’ as implied by the 2015 article Marzhin cites—actually doing so may be cost prohibited. Furthermore no surveys have been published since 2019, I’m assuming COVID was a major contributor there. All the tracking here:
https://www.againstmalaria.com/Distributions.aspx?MapID=1
Thanks for the post Rachel! I admire you looking into the topic.
However, one to add is that AMF monitors net usage uniquely stringently and this likely leads to far fewer people using the nets for fishing. (or at least they did until 2015)
From a 2015 article:
However, AMF takes a number of steps to stop misuse. We believe that each of them has contributed to the success of our distributions.
Malaria education is key. We work closely with local health officials, the front line health teams and the village and community leaders, to ensure the community is fully aware of the connection between sleeping under intact nets and preventing malaria.
AMF uses extremely rigorous pre-distribution surveys to determine precise net needs, followed by independent checks when the nets are given out to ensure no nets are diverted away from households that need them.
AMF conducts post-distribution check-ups to ensure nets are being used as intended every 6-months during the 3 years following a distribution. People are informed that these checks will be made by random selection, and via unnannounced visits. This gives us a data-driven view of where the nets are and whether they are being used properly. We publish all the data we collect: example here. This type of follow up work is currently unique to AMF, although we hope the practice will become more widespread where it is feasible.
At AMF, the extensive data we have collected verifies that the number of nets we have distributed that are used for fishing is immaterial.
https://www.againstmalaria.com/NewsItem.aspx?newsitem=Net-use-and-the-importance-of-data-driven-distributions-and-monitoring
Given that AMF is the main bednet distributor that EAs give to (Malaria Consortium distributes medicine), I think the negative impact of EA-influenced bednet distribution is lower than one might assume from your post!
Thank you for adding this clarification! It’s good to determine whether EA-driven funds are unlikely to be substantially exacerbating the issue. Other bednet distributors besides AMF may have worse outcome tracking methods but that is outside of the EA community scope to discipline.
One minor caveat to your clarification is that many of the nets are reused for fishing only after they are considered too worn out for bednet use, at which point even distributors using AMF’s methodology may no longer be tracking their utilization.
Noting that even with AMF’s tracking methodology I’m not seeing strong evidence that nets distributed are not being diverted even within AMF’s tracking period:
For example, this survey shows about 36% utilization as intended at the 18 month mark. Since they don’t need to be brand new to be used as fishing nets, some portion of the other 64% might be serving an economically productive second life. https://www.againstmalaria.com/Distribution1.aspx?ProposalID=194 (The link to underlying data sadly appears to be broken at the moment, and no detailed report is provided, only the overview.)
Also, AMF has documented far fewer surveys than ‘monitor every distribution effort every six months for three years’ as implied by the 2015 article Marzhin cites—actually doing so may be cost prohibited. Furthermore no surveys have been published since 2019, I’m assuming COVID was a major contributor there. All the tracking here: https://www.againstmalaria.com/Distributions.aspx?MapID=1