Where did it all go wrong?

摘要

In May 1998, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) announced a United Nations-led campaign to Roll Back Malaria (RBM), pledging to halve malaria deaths by 2010. Today, RBM is at the halfway point and the WHO's own statistics show deaths have actually increased (see graph, right). For the several hundred thousand children who died in the interim, RBM is not just a failure but a fatal betrayal by the United Nations. How did this happen? The fundamental reason is political: the WHO launched RBM to create an advocacy splash, but has subsequently failed to ensure adequate funding.