STATEMENT BY THE RT HON. PRIME MINISTER,
AMBROSE MANDVULO DLAMINI
ANNOUNCEMENT END MALARIA INIATIVE LAUNCH
CABINET OFFICES, MBABANE
THURSDAY 18 APRIL 2019
Deputy Prime Minister
Cabinet Ministers
Senior Government officials
Members of the media
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen
I am honoured to welcome you all today to announce His Majesty King Mswati III’s plan to launch a historic and game changing initiative: the End Malaria Fund on 31 May 2019.
Over the years, the Kingdom of Eswatini has made remarkable progress in its Malaria response and has been declared ready for malaria elimination by the World Health Organisation—one of eight such countries in Africa. The number of local cases in Eswatini decreased drastically from 188 in 2013/4 to 68 in 2015/16.
Despite this progress, continued vigilance is necessary to protect the people of Eswatini and to avoid a resurgence of malaria. Eswatini’s malaria progress is threatened by imported cases from the SADC region and thus identifying and treating imported cases remains a key priority for Government.
On 1 July 2018 at the African Union Summit, His Majesty King Mswati III in his capacity as the Chairperson of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) launched the Zero Malaria Starts with Me Campaign with President Macky Sall of the Republic of Senegal, a continent-wide public-facing campaign for a malaria-free Africa. The campaign reignites grass-roots movement for individuals, families, communities, religious leaders, private sector, political leaders, and other members of society to take full responsibility to defeat malaria.
The following month, the Kingdom of Eswatini was signatory to the Windhoek Declaration on Malaria Elimination, which called on SADC Member States to, among other things, increase resource allocation from national Governments to address the gap in funding and supportive policies to promote malaria elimination.
As you are aware Eswatini is taking a lead to achieve Zero Malaria in Africa. However, Eswatini has a US$5 million funding gap required to meet the bold and ambitious targets of the Revised Malaria Elimination Strategic Plan (2015-2020). In contrast to mobilising external resources, domestic resource mobilisation offers the advantages of greater domestic policy ownership and greater coherence with domestic needs, sustainability and higher development impact.
It is in this context that Eswatini prioritises increased domestic public and private investments in health to support on-going interventions for Malaria prevention, surveillance and treatment. In order to consolidate on the progress that we have achieved, His Majesty King Mswati III directed the Government to establish a national End Malaria Fund, and committed 5 million Emalangeni as seed funding. The Fund has since been established by Legal Notice No.21 of 2018. This Fund will raise and provide capital investments to close the US$5 Million funding gap and accelerate elimination of malaria by the end of 2020.
The Fund seeks to mobilise domestic resources to eliminate local transmission of malaria in the Kingdom by 2020; sustain elimination thereafter through surveillance, testing and case management, and support malaria elimination at the regional and sub-regional levels as malaria knows no borders.
The Fund will keep malaria high on our political and development agenda, sustain social mobilisation as well as Public and Private Partnership in domestic resource mobilisation.
The Kingdom of Eswatini invites chiefs, business people, churches and the entire nation to provide support and rally behind this important milestone in our journey to defeat Malaria. The Fund will be an integral part of the broader ‘Zero Malaria Starts With Me Campaign’ that we are rolling out in the Kingdom.
Investing in malaria makes a lot of economic sense. It is a quick win in our path to economic development, generating $36 for each $1 invested globally. Preventing malaria is about creating a more productive economy by preventing workers from missing work. Preventing malaria also strengthens education in the Kingdom by preventing students from missing school. Eliminating malaria is a national objective shared by all the people of Eswatini.
As I conclude, may I on behalf of His Majesty’s Government pass my gratitude to all members of Cabinet, staff and all partners for the hard work put towards driving the King’s vision to establish the Fund.
His Majesty King Mswati III cordially invites the media to this historic launch of the Fund to eliminate malaria in the Kingdom of Eswatini. His Majesty the King will be joined by Heads of State and Government across Africa, and global health leaders to launch the Fund.
Finally, let me re-iterate that Zero Malaria Starts with you; do not remain behind, be part of the legacy for a Malaria free generation.
TOGETHER WE WILL END MALARIA BY 2020.
Thank you. May God bless us all.