From Training & Research to Best Practice: The Malaria Partnership for Excellence

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In 2006, Malawi was included among the first seven named sub-Saharan countries to benefit from the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI), an initiative seeking to reduce malaria mortality by 50% in 15 countries by 2010. The United States will work in partnership with the Malawi government to build on existing national malaria control plans, policies and resources to rapidly scale up proven malaria prevention and treatment interventions. However, there is a limited range of local expertise to implement, monitor and evaluate the new interventions. Areas of need include biostatistical expertise, grants management expertise, entomological expertise, capacity to conduct multi-disciplinary evaluations and operations in the field, and technical capabilities to monitor drug and insecticide effectiveness. Therefore, the goal of this planning grant is to develop a training program to help meet the monitoring and evaluation needs and requirements of the PMI activities to be implemented by the National Malaria Control Program and partners. Specific objectives of the training program include (1) development of the capacity required to monitor and evaluate activities with the PMI in Malawi, (2) improvement in the external grants management capacity in the University of Malawi College of Medicine by training administrative and accounting staff, and (3) identification of research projects relevant to PMI activities in Malawi. The planning grant would support a needs assessment and workshop to identify current expertise, training needs, and potential research areas. A needs assessment will be conducted using key informant interviews and focus groups with those working on PMI activities in content areas of data management, entomology, pharmacology, clinical epidemiology, parasitology, and social science. A specific needs assessment will be conducted regarding grants administration by a senior grants administrator. Results will be prepared, with oversight from an advisory committee, and discussed at a workshop. Workshop participants will then outline a training program responsive to the findings from the needs assessment. A full proposal for the training program will be the primary outcome from this project.