“Now, in health centres, we can find empty beds in the peak malaria period”

Partner: Roll Back Malaria

This is what Mr Ismail Njie, Chief Nursing Officer, from the Gambia explained.
 “Women have no longer miscarriages because of malaria, and we had no deaths of children for two years”..., said a woman in Togo.

Since 2005, as in eight other west African countries, Togo and the Gambia have been experimenting and integrating in their existing strategies an approach of social mobilization called “Malaria Competence” and its main tool, the self-assessment. 

Roll Back Malaria and the Constellation adapted the AIDS Competence Process to malaria. A group of facilitators was trained in Mombasa in 2005 and they experimented with the approach in their country.

Three years later, Roll Back Malaria asked the Constellation to run a field investigation in two countries that appeared to have been particularly proactive: Togo and the Gambia.

Two Constellation coaches visited the 2 countries to capture progress. Along the 1800 kms long journey within the two countries, they have met village communities, health workers, school children, women and youth groups, opinion leaders, drama groups, government and NGOs representatives...

The results they found were astonishing. The Red Cross in Togo used its own network to spread malaria competence: from regional coordinators to 15.000 volunteers in the whole country. They compared the results of communities having a Red Cross group (Group 1, below) and who had made their self assessment, with those who had no Red Cross representation (group 2). 

In the Gambia, 30 facilitators were trained in malaria competence. They implemented the approach in 16 communities in the Western region, 15 communities and 15 schools in North Bank West and North Bank East Health Regions.

The Constellation worked with Roll Back Malaria and other partners to develop the guidelines for Community Systems Strengthening (CSS) under the Global Fund. The Malaria Competence Process (MCP) was one of the recommended approaches. More information can be found here.

For more information on malaria competence visit the malaria competence website.