A Better Bednet Approach

It’s easy and often justified to be critical of aid and development. I do it. Others do it. But sometimes it helps to remind ourselves that it can work well. Take this example, of a market generation project to set up a mosquito net industry in seven countries (via Alanna Shaikh).

“In a decade-long initiative to protect millions of families from malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, a U.S. government-funded project helped sell 50 million bed nets in seven countries, crafted a voucher system to allow the poor to receive them for free or partial cost, and created enough incentives for private companies that they invested $88 million to expand their businesses…This new commercial approach also helped reduce the price of insecticide-treated mosquito nets by 30 to 70 percent. Now, those nets sell for between US$4 and US$7.

The NetMark project, a $67 million, USAID-funded public-private partnership to prevent malaria, ends September 30, but the bed net market continues to thrive in seven countries where it operated—Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Ghana, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Zambia. Not only did the U.S. investment help spur major spending by private companies—for every $1 in public funds, African and international businesses spent $1.30—the new commercial sector now exists… “There are now 41 African distributors who will continue to sell thousands or millions of nets in those seven countries. The voucher system is now entrenched.”

Jeffrey L. Sturchio, President and CEO of the Global Health Council, praised the initiative for creating a model that will last. “This project shows the surprising results that come from combining creativity, commitment, and commercial innovation on global health issues,” he said. “It also shows that novel partnerships, bringing the public and private sectors together, can achieve impressive improvements in public health in a way that is reliable and sustainable.”

But the best quote?

“We worked ourselves out of a job. They don’t need us anymore, and I’m proud of that”

- Juan Manuel Urrutia, AED’s Johannesburg-based deputy director of NetMark.

I love it.

It shouldn’t be a surprise to any readers that I am excited about a market-based development solution. But even as successful examples like this emerge, funders still seem uncomfortable with the variability of such a project. Funding applicants are saying: instead of providing exactly X bednets by direct distribution, we’re going to try to set conditions in place where others might sell far more than X bednets. There’s no guarantee, but the potential is there for a massive, sustainable upside, as was the case here. The added bonus is that the project won’t cannibalize existing businesses (as much) by flooding the area with free goods. This is the proposition organizations like IDE, EWV, Practica and Kickstart make with every pitch.

The particulars don’t concern me as much as the fact that the approach worked in harmony with existing markets and allowed people to make their own choices about what solutions work for them. This can be powerful.

B

(shot from Ethiopia, 2009. See how I got it here.)

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(shot of neighbours in Ethiopia. Story here.)

       

Tagged as: alanna shaikh, malaria, mosquito, netmark