From the core to the peripheries: multilateral governance of malaria in a multi-cultural world.

Abstract

This article explores the vicious tension between the malaria control policies of multilateral organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the traditional malaria therapies used by populations in malaria endemic African societies. It argues that age-old traditional therapies in malaria endemic societies are relegated to the peripheries of global malaria regime. The article discusses the vision of the WHO's Roll-Back Malaria Campaign (RBM), an innovative private-public partnership aimed at reducing the mortality and morbidity burdens of malaria in the developing world. The article raises questions of accountability and transparency of the operational framework of global partnerships such as the RBM. While such partnerships have emerged as useful mechanisms in global health governance in recent years, the search for a cosmopolitan, inclusive, and humane malaria regime must strive to identify all the key actors and stakeholders: populations that live their daily lives with burdens of malaria, national governments, civil society, multilateral health organizations, and pharmaceutical companies. This article draws from extended field interviews, which the author conducted in rural societies in Nigeria. It concludes that a sustained relegation of African traditional medicine to the peripheries/margins of contemporary multilateral/global malaria regime is one form of what Richard Falk has characterized as "globalism-from-above". One obvious consequence of this is that the phenomenon of globalization of public health remains intensely hegemonic and predatory.