Oxfam have shot themselves in the foot.
One of the many roles of NGOs is to make initiatives and organisations accountable. NGOs invest time and resources making sure that these entities are all they are cracked up to be. This is a huge amount of responsibility. They don’t always get it right.
Getting it wrong is costly, but not for the NGO.
Oxfam’s criticism of the Affordable Medicines Facility – malaria (AMFm), for me, is them getting it wrong.
The AMFm is a part of The Global Fund, a “public-private partnership and international financing institution dedicated to attracting and disbursing additional resources to prevent and treat communicable diseases.” Malaria’s treatment has always been a hot topic. Fears persist of drug resistant strains of mosquitos acting as vectors for the disease. This is a possibility enflamed by misinformed and poorly administered treatment programs.
That’s why the best form of treatment for malaria is prevention. Anti-mosquito nets are a dime a dozen. They are the easiest way of slashing malaria rates. This is an example of what Oxfam senior policy advisor Dr Mohga Kamal Yanni means when he speaks of “community health workers, who have slashed the number of malarial deaths”. But by combining this with “The AMFm is a dangerous distraction from genuine solutions” she is missing the point.
The AMFm’s mission statement is to “expand access to the most effective treatment for malaria”. Not to stop the uptake of malaria. Not to rid the world of malaria. To provide those with malaria with access to medicine so their lives, and the lives of those who depend on them, will be affected as little as possible by the disease.
The AMFm leverages cash from public and private organisations like DFID and Chevron to subsidise the best anti-malaria drugs on the market. This cuts their prices and makes them much more affordable to those with the disease. This is an incredibly impressive effort that the partners of the AMFm need to be proud of.
Oxfam needs to be careful with what it does with its influence or it risks losing credibility. I should think the Global Fund is thoroughly fed up with this misplaced criticism. I certainly would be.