The Roll Back Malaria Partnership Board approved a new Governance Framework at its 29th Board Meeting in Geneva which will refine and refocus the current Partnership to better advocate for and attract increased attention to the global malaria fight for the next fifteen years. Part of this Board approval will see the creation of a high-level Malaria Council, a Partnership Board, Partner Committees and a Management Team that once operational will begin the work of coordinating the global malaria stakeholder community around the issues of resource mobilization, country support and leadership, advocacy and technical support.

This decision marks an important milestone in the transition process which was launched in May 2015 under the leadership of Admiral Tim Ziemer (The U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative) and Minister David Pariyenwata (Minister of Health, Zimbabwe).

A process to nominate members of the new Partnership Board will commence in January 2016, with the new Board assuming its role by the end of February. With due importance to countries affected by malaria, the new Board structure allows for nearly 50 percent of Board members to be nominated by affected countries.

The Private Sector Members Council (PSMC)—of which GBCHealth serves as Focal Point—was very supportive of these decisions, especially the recognition that malaria-affected countries and their perspectives are fully represented. Given its active participation in the process till date, the PSMC will continue to review its slate of nominees to the new Board, with the hopes of finalizing for submission ahead of the January 31 deadline. More importantly, the PSMC will be spending the coming months internally refining how it plans to work with the new mechanism once finalized, while identifying where and how it can continue to elevate the issues most critical to the private sector and the malaria fight more broadly.