Marketing Malaria Control: Nets, Neoliberalism, and a New Approach to Fighting Malaria

This article examines how malaria control in Africa became a neoliberal enterprise that privileged market mechanisms as an ideal way to disseminate health interventions. It does so by tracking efforts to sell insecticide-treated nets on the continent as these tools transformed from cheap stopgap measures intended for primary health care programmes in the early 1980s to a major target of global health aid by the 2000s. Even though experience showed that selling insecticide-treated nets to African populations did not lead to high levels of uptake, malaria programme leaders continued to tinker with market mechanisms to scale up the intervention in line with the interests of prominent donors. Narrating this history as it unfolded across different African countries, this paper shows that the neoliberalisation of malaria control was a contingent and fragmented process that depended as much on local experiences with particular health technologies as it did on high-level policy-making.

Automated summary

This article explores how malaria control in Africa has embraced neoliberal principles and market mechanisms, particularly in the distribution of health interventions. It traces the evolution of insecticide-treated nets from makeshift solutions in primary healthcare programs in the 1980s to a major focus of global health aid by the 2000s. Despite the low uptake of these nets, malaria program leaders continued to experiment with market mechanisms to expand their reach to align with the interests of influential donors. The study demonstrates the contingent and fragmented nature of the neoliberalization of malaria control, shaped by local experiences and high-level policy-making.