Abstract:
Malaria, a deadly disease transmitted by the bites of infected mosquitoes, had been effectively eliminated from the developed world since the end of the World Health Organization’s Global Malaria Eradication Campaign in 1969. In Africa, however, the disease remained a scourge through the early 2000s, killing close to a million people each year, most of them children under five. As a result, the international community set an ambitious goal: reduce malaria deaths in Africa to zero by the end of 2015. Rising to the challenge required the mobilization of a vast network of local, regional, national, and global actors in the for-profit, nonprofit, and public spheres. Local community groups in tiny African villages, national malaria control programs in malaria-endemic countries, national and international non-governmental organizations, faith-based organizations, foundations, individual philanthropists, research institutes, and huge multilateral bureaucracies like the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Health Organization, and the World Bank would be required to work together with focus and vigor to meet the goal. This case describes the history of the global fight against malaria, and the role of the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals, the Global Fund, the President’s Malaria Initiative, the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, and other actors in collectively shepherding the effort.
The Harvard Kennedy School Case Program has published three cases on the Mosquito Network. This case is adapted from "The Mosquito Network: Collaborative Entrepreneurship in the Fight to Eliminate Malaria Deaths (A)," HKS Case No. 2071.0, and "The Mosquito Network: Collaborative Entrepreneurship in the Fight to Eliminate Malaria Deaths (B)," HKS Case No. 2072.0, written by Gaylen Williams Moore.
Learning Objective:
1. Students will learn the processes through which successful global governance can be achieved.
2. Students will be able to articulate the value and use of consenting norms and rules in global governance.
