Time to Chart a New Path to Africa’s Malaria-Free Future

When it comes to defeating malaria, Africa faces a stark choice: Step up and lead or watch as more lives are lost. 

With the U.S., U.K., Germany, and other governments cutting assistance and the disease already surging in parts of the continent, we face a critical moment—one that calls for Africa to chart a new path to a malaria-free future.

Global efforts have cut malaria’s death rate in half since 2000. But the pool of funding is shrinking. WHO’s World Malaria Report, published last month, shows $3.9 billion was invested in malaria elimination in 2024—less than half the need. A dramatic reduction in aid this year is disrupting core activities like disease surveillance, supply chains for medicines, and delivery of medical care for people with malaria. For Africa, home to 95% of the world’s malaria deaths, this is not a distant worry. In the meantime, the report shows new evidence that in Africa, the malaria parasite is building resistance to the most important anti-malarial medicine, artemisinin.

Without action, the situation could impact millions. In Zimbabwe, malaria has already exploded from 29,031 cases and 49 deaths in the first half of 2024 to 111,998 cases of malaria and 310 deaths over the same period in 2025. Botswana, once close to eliminating the disease, has seen cases surge 10X, while Rwanda reported a 45% increase in 2024. A new analysis commissioned in part by African heads of state suggests a 20% further reduction in funding could result in 33 million more people contracting malaria and $5 billion in lost GDP by 2030.

To prevent a scenario like this, it’s clear Africa needs to invest more of its own resources. In countries where malaria is endemic, Africa’s share of funding has grown from an average of 33% to 37% since 2010. Several countries, including Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Uganda, are taking steps to grow their health budgets. It’s time to accelerate those gains. 

A lot can also be done to use resources better. To start, all governments where malaria is endemic should have national elimination plans. External actors have long played an outsized role on the continent, often leaving health ministries and national malaria control programs to oversee a fragmented set of projects led by different groups. Instead, African institutions should set priorities, align partners around national plans, and demand accountability for results. The African Union and regional economic communities can then help coordinate efforts at the regional level, keeping malaria high on the political agenda. 

This would reduce the duplication of effort while making it easier to enroll more domestic partners in eradicating the disease. As we discussed on the Global Health Matters podcast in 2024, malaria work is often siloed off from other programs, even when they serve the same goals or communities. This makes little sense. Consider the opportunity we have to prevent more malaria cases, with two newly approved malaria vaccines, RTS,S and R21/ Matrix–M. Malaria programs can take the lead, but they need to involve other programs—like routine immunization, antenatal care, and community outreach—to actually get the vaccines to people.  

Malaria programs should look for help outside the health sector, too. An approach many African governments have already embraced is One Health. Urbanization, farming practices, migration, and climate trends all impact malaria rates. Find partners there and diversify the resource base. Meanwhile, there’s strong evidence to show that elevating women and investing in girls’ education are essential malaria policies, not just social goods. When women are educated, malaria prevention improves. A 2020 BMJ Global Health study showed that just an additional year of a mother’s schooling increased her children’s use of insecticide-treated bed nets and reduced their risk of contracting malaria. 

This is also Africa’s opportunity to unleash its clinical and scientific leadership. Its private health care sector treats a third of malaria patients, so it should be more involved in disease surveillance, reporting, and case management systems. Africa’s academic institutions are conducting everything from advanced mosquito genomics to behavioral research on people’s use of bed nets and other tools–locally generated evidence to guide global eradication.

Leadership doesn’t have to mean going it alone. Africa’s leaders should approach donors to contribute to the Global Fund, the world’s leading source of malaria financing. The new U.S. global health security strategy, which reaffirms America’s commitment to building resilient health systems, provides another partnership opportunity. But the era of dependency is over. 

Eliminating malaria can become a defining story of African leadership that safeguards lives for generations.

Corine Karema is the CEO and founder of Afrika Kwanza Health Impact. 

Francine Ntoumi is founder, president, and executive director of the Congolese Foundation for Medical Research in the Republic of the Congo, and served as the first African leader of the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria.

Garry Aslanyan is manager of Partnerships and Global Engagement at the Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, and host of the Global Health Matters podcast.