Now philanthropies like the Gates Foundation, private companies, U.N. agencies and the World Bank, African governments, and many others are trying to do something about it. Celebrities like Bono, Ashley Judd, Tom Cruise, Sharon Stone, and Youssou N'Dour are embracing the efforts. It's an attractive cause: a horrible disease, less complicated morally than HIV/AIDS because sex is not involved, and with some simple, low-cost solutions: sleeping under insecticide-treated bed nets, for one.
Religion can and should play a central role in this international health campaign, much more prominent than it does now. But so far faith institutions remain at the fringes of the big international campaigns. There is a strong case with a broadly based killer like malaria, where both causes and tools to fight it stretch far beyond the hospital, for some hefty coordination efforts. That's the spirit that drove the campaigns to eradicate diseases like polio, smallpox, and guinea worm. In the campaign to end malaria, the potential of religion is huge.
Churches, mosques, leaders and congregations are ideally situated to make a quantum difference in this battle--in fund-raising and community involvement, to cite two obvious directions. Religious institutions are often the only functioning bodies in the communities that need help most. And religious institutions run a hefty share of hospitals and clinics, which puts them squarely on the front line. Who better to promote the use of mosquito nets, to clean up stagnant water, to encourage pregnant women to get simple treatments that can protect them and their babies, and help care for the sick and get them the medical help they need?
Two visionary leaders from the secular world are determined to mobilize this potential force of faith in the malaria battle.
Tony Blair, in his new role as head of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, has made malaria a first cause to champion, working with Malaria No More. The foundation is promoting a campaign to raise funds for a million nets by September 25. That's the day the United Nations is hosting an event to renew commitments to the Millennium Development Goals, which include halting the spread of malaria. Blair speaks out on the urgency for action wherever he gets a chance, and prominently on his MySpace page (www.myspace.com/tonyblairfaithfoundation).
And Ed Scott, one of America's most determined and creative philanthropists, chairman of the Center for Global Development and angel of Bono's DATA, is gearing up a new group that will tackle head-on the mundane obstacles that stand in the way of faith roles on malaria and HIV/AIDS. For instance: the largest faith inspired organizations, like Catholic Relief Services and World Vision, have state-of-the-art accounting and monitoring systems, but the myriad smaller organizations generally do not. I've heard moving tales about being too busy healing the sick to worry about paperwork, but it's hardly surprising that funding agencies balk when the books don't tally. Similarly, fuzzy answers to questions about results will not instill confidence in funders.
Grant -making tends to be deeply frustrating for all concerned; Tearfund, a British organization, gave the title "Many Clouds, Little Rain", to a review of how a global funding giant, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria, and Tuberculosis, was dealing with faith-inspired oranizations. In many high malaria areas, like Tanzania and Malawi, no one even knows what organizations are working where, much less how successful they are. Scott aims to work on these knotty if rather unsexy problems that stand in the way of coordinated action.
There's already a host of faith-led work to fight malaria. To take just one example, the Washington National Cathedral, working with a coalition that includes the Seventh Day Adventist agency, ADRA, has spearheaded a malaria campaign in Mozambique that aims to bring all different denominations and leaders together, and the American President's Malaria Initiative supports it. But overall the landscape of who does what, where, with how much, is not clearly mapped. Efforts tend to be quite fragmented, and there are huge gaps.
The potential for a blockbuster push that brings faith to the fore on malaria is truly exciting. September 25, when leaders from all over the world renew their promise to fight world poverty, is a great opportunity to press the case.
