ReliefWeb

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is the lead U.S. government agency for implementation of the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI), a $1.2 billion, five-year commitment created to dramatically reduce the burden of malaria in Africa. This initiative will be focused, results-based, and will exhibit a high level of financial and programmatic accountability.
While the President's Malaria Initiative increases over the next five years, USAID's other malaria programs have now been restructured to function in the same, results-based and accountable fashion as the PMI. The changes will effectively combine all USAID malaria activities into a single, strategic effort. The most significant changes include:

• Lifesaving Drugs and Supplies. Beginning in fiscal year 2006, at least $24 million (or 40 percent) of USAID's non-PMI malaria funds (and excluding those directed by Congress for malaria research) will be designated for the sole, express purpose of providing life-saving drugs and supplies -- insecticides and equipment for spraying, insecticide-treated bed nets, artemisinin-combination therapies and diagnostics, drugs for intermittent preventive treatment of pregnant women, and drugs for severe malaria. This category's funding level is approximately five times that of fiscal year 2004.
  
  
• Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS). In fiscal year 2006, $15 million (or 25 percent) of non-PMI malaria funds will be designated to exclusively support indoor residual spraying in malaria-affected countries. This category's funding level is approximately 15 times that of fiscal year 2004. (Note: the supplies necessary for IRS, such as insecticides and spray equipment, are also accounted for in the previous paragraph.)
  
  
• Country Program Funding. In order to ensure that individual country programs are funded at levels sufficient to achieve measurable results and save lives, beginning in fiscal year 2006, no developing country malaria program or regionally-managed country program will be funded at less than $1.5 million. In fiscal year 2007, the minimum funding for country programs will rise to at least $2.5 million.
  
  
• Malaria Program Transparency. All reporting of non-PMI programs will be subject to the new malaria data management system established in November 2005, and will be posted on a publicly-accessible USAID website. This data will include all program budgets, inputs, outputs, and outcomes.

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