Tony Blair Faith Foundation

I better declare an interest.  I introduced Alex Perry to Michael Dwyer of Hurst Publications because he obviously had a great story to tell and, more power to his arm, Michael published his manuscript.  It even headed his list last year. Not bad for a book on malaria largely in Africa.

Like any good journalist Perry can tell a rattling good tale in decent sized sentences.  As Time magazine’s Africa specialist, he had got malaria into a double spread on one occasion. The book reflects these skills.

The story is how one man, Ray Chambers, almost single-handedly brought his exceptional business acumen into a global health campaign and made massive inroads on malaria deaths. The sub-plot is that quite a lot of others already responsible for dealing with the problem were initially either a nuisance until he turned them around or a roadblock that had to be dismantled. The international development agencies get a very bad press.

Ray Chambers himself felt obliged to write to “Malaria Partners” on 24 August that the book should be seen as “one small part of a larger story”, and that its views were the author’s alone. He was grateful for Alex Perry highlighting the success of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership but wished “he would have been much broader in selecting those who he recognised”. The focus of a journalist’s endeavours setting the record right because he has been given too much glory and handed too many accolades. This might just be a first.

The central premise of the book is well worth stating. A single individual can make an incredible difference if they have the right skill set and personality. Ray Chambers did. Likewise the idea that the skills of exceptional business leaders are entirely compatible with the leadership of successful charitable endeavours is evidently correct – though hardly novel. What does not hold water is that such skills only grow in some special soil called “business”, hermetically sealed off from those dedicated to public service and those leading the not-for-profit sector.

The trouble is that irritating swipes at those Perry thinks are getting it wrong divert readers from the core narrative: how impregnated bed-nets and education in their use have reduced malaria deaths by a quarter of a million per annum in less than a decade, how Chambers lined up the money and moral energy to make this possible, and how a focussed vertical intervention of this kind opens up the possibility of eliminating an ancient disease. Roll Back Malaria is now going for “near-zero deaths” from malaria by 2015.

There is a small section afforded to the involvement of religious leaders in the campaign with the major focus being on Nigeria. But most references to NGOs highlight the defects of a few that tar the reputation of the many. Some extraordinarily effective responses to the HIV/AIDS pandemic have come from both.

The major critique of big health campaigns is not really addressed: that the all important strengthening of health systems around the world does not necessarily get helped by a blitzkrieg on a particular disease. This either/or approach to how- to questions  is counterproductive because sensible measures can make such massive investment of resources in malaria prevention part of a wider improvement of systems and supply of resources within a national health systems. Indeed it can trigger it.  The work of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation in Sierra Leone, for example, has shown how co-operative malaria prevention helps integrate faith-community based health care with that of the Ministry of Health and build up links for the future.

We are lucky that we have someone of Alex Perry’s talents to tell the tale of Roll Back Malaria and inspire greater commitment to malaria prevention. We are unlucky, on this occasion, that he has found it hard to leave one or two tricks of the journalist’s trade at home 

Ian Linden, Director of Policy