http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k_XH-ajLo0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k_XH-ajLo0

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At one time Kenya was actually the worlds largest producer of pyrethrum commanding 70% of the global markets. However, corruption and underhand deals ensured that the bulk of the product was sent to US manufacturer Johnson.

However, even with large buyers from the US and even Japan (Sumitomo), the Pyrethrum Board of Kenya which had exclusive marketing rights was mismanaged, so that pyrethrum farmers did not receive their just pay. Thus they started uprooting their farms to instead till other cash crops that would provide ready cash.

It is even harder for local entrepreneurs who want to venture into the malaria control using pyrethrum-based products. The regulatory process to get a licence to sell any insecticide is skewed towards large (and mainly foreign owned) manufacturers.

In 2003, I was personally involved in the pesticide registration process, which took one and half years (I have been told that was fast for the small business startup we were!). I remember well on the first day I went to the pest control products board I was met with stares of disbelief that such a small business-person such as myself could even put in an application!

Even the Ministry of Health were adamant that mosquito nets were the only way to go, not wanting to hear of any locally produced alternatives. Even their second line of resistance of indoor residual spraying only had a minimal amount of pyrethrum.

How a country that was the number one producer of pyrethrum and which yearly looses so many children under the age of 5 years to malaria, could be so conservative in finding a solution (which was growing just under their nose) baffles me.

Africa by virtue of its climate also plays host to many other botanical plants that if entrepreneurs are given the chance can form the first line of malaria prevention. These include neem oil, jatropha and eucalyptus, amongst many others. The time has come to look within and not just wait with open hands for the next handout from the donors to fight malaria.

I agree with you 110% on the need to build local capacity (see my blog posting on it), but we have different ideas on what local capacity should look like. Malaria kills 1M people a year almost exclusively in developing countries. In my mind the goal is to prevent as many malaria deaths as possible, not to build an industry based in locally around combating it. Capacity should be about finding innovative solutions and most critically distributing them to people in need – from my point of view local capacity would look like locally based NGOs distributing and connecting to funding / production sources from wherever in the world it could be done most efficiently. I fully believe innovations are more likely to come from the ground where people have access to information at the micro level, but efficiency should be the priority.

I don't think people should pay for bed nets and medication. If you agree with that, where does the funding for them come from? If you don't, I beg you to tell me why not. I don't think that people living at subsistence levels should have to decide between food, education, and health. I think people have a right to at least a baseline on these. But even if you don't believe in that, there is a clear case for government intervention and I believe aid, in the case of malaria — due to both the presence of externalities and the need to incentivize R&D.

On the externalities end this is pretty straightforward, falling ill and dying from malaria incurs costs on society that individuals don't internalize. This justifies some form of subsidy to promote bed nets, medicines, etc and not a pure market driven solution.

On the R&D side, well there's just not enough incentive in engage in R&D activities for diseases like malaria because the potential market is limited to developing countries. Here I think there is a clear role for aid — I support a purchase guarantee fund to incent competition and make sure drugs get produced not just researched. And from what I understand Nothing but Nets is working with a company who has developed nets which release insecticide over a 5 year period — so this is an example of aid promoting R&D activities that might not happen otherwise.

Happy to have a separate discussion on promoting economic growth directly via private investment, I just don't see that as the primary goal here. Having said that, given transportation costs in Africa, there seems a clear opportunity to have the continent be the most efficient place to do production. I'm sure there are other an abundant other opportunities as well, like artemesia and pyrethrum as you point out. If economic activity can be generated locally in the fight against malaria, that's great.

But I just don't think that's the point. I think the goal should be preventing as many malaria deaths as possible as efficiently as possible.

Local capacity building is important to me because, without that, then we are doomed to perpetual dependency. And it's directly because of that import of external solutions that retards our ability to develop solutions on our own. And I am surprised that you don't see the pattern here. We've spent over a century being told what to do, and what's good for us. From slavery, to colonial rule, and now, paternalistic neo-colonialist aid-mechanism that insists that no solution can be innovated in Africa for Africans.

As for industrial activity, Import/Export is a function of trade. True, importing inputs is critical to the growth of new industries. But what industries does importing finished goods create? When you erode the ability of a local economy to be part of the production process, you doom them to dependency because they can't thrive economically in that industry. Importing finished goods kills off any competition and ensuresassociationslike MNM will be around for a long time because we will always need them.

Foreign Aid plays very little in that economic matrix. Money, human resources, and knowledge are all imported. Think about it, the only thing we've been able to export successfully is bad news Africa this and bad news Africa that.

Aid isn't new to us, it's been happening to us for the last 60 years to the tune of nearly $1 trillion. If it's your assertion that imported solutions can be had for cheap and be more effective, certainly they can. But sole reliance on these cheaper solutions has done nothing to strengthen our ability to stand on our own.

Also, I think you missed my point entirely on a good capacity building model. If you want to help us truly, invest in our ability to create solutions for us. For example, anti-malaria ingredients grow naturally in sub-Saharan Africa. Employ farmers to grow artemesia and pyrethrum. Don't import synthetics. Invest in a local factory with financing to buy new equipment, expand, knowledge transfer of best practices. Still not enough capacity? Open new factories, packaging and distribution centers, in Africa. If there's a need, invest in a solution. Europe, China, America follow that model, why does Africa have to be treated differently. China didn't develop because it was given aid, China developed because the world saw a need and invested.

Surely you can see cross-parallelshere. It's taken way less than 60 years for China to develop from a poor populous country to aneconomicpowerhouse. And that only happened because of investment, not aid or a sole reliance on imports.

If you extend this logic to industrial activities, ability to import inputs is critical to developing new industries.

Also, what does your ideal local capacity solution look like? A local based organization employing only Africans? Is there no help from outside, even if just financing? Do people pay for bed nets then? Or is the hope that governments subsidize them? We've seen huge drop offs in usage when people are charged for them, and little support for the sunk cost fallacy argument (since I paid for my bed net, I value it more).

Thanks!

It saddens me that the ONE net manufacturer on the ground might be put out of business because MNM imports most of their nets from other countries. I'm sure its the path of least resistance.. but we can't have that anymore.

I think in order to fix this the public must be educated. Your articles have helped a great deal. Once they start requiring this of the NGOs, they will be forced to seek solutions that are sustainable within Africa (or Central America). I'm actually working on a project to do just that. But this is no time for a plug.

I'm not even going to comment on why some ppl in the West setup NPOs then spend lots of money on offices and fancy chairs in DC, NY, etc. that's just sad.

Thanks for sharing!