GiveWell makes $276 million grant to fund anti-malaria nets in Democratic Republic of the Congo

More in the next blog post:

The areas of DRC we expect to be covered by this grant have among the highest malaria mortality rates in the absence of ITNs for children under five of any geography where we’ve funded net campaigns in recent years: 0.88%, compared to, for example, 0.73% in our recent grant for nets in Nigeria and 0.47% in Côte d’Ivoire. DRC has a relatively high all-cause mortality rate for children and the highest estimated share of deaths due to malaria among these geographies.

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Our research for this grant found that despite the need, the available funding for DRC was insufficient to ensure that all areas had net campaigns. The Global Fund is the largest malaria funder in the world; it has a policy of providing no more than 10% of its malaria funding allocation to any one country. Due to this cap, limited funding from other donors, and the high burden of disease, there remains a significant need for nationwide campaigns that GiveWell’s support addresses.

Also, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (official name) has recently faced funding cuts.

From the article:

GiveWell, with co-funding from Coefficient Giving, recently made our largest grant to date: $276 million to the Against Malaria Foundation (AMF) to support the procurement and distribution of 92 million nets in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) from 2027 through 2029. We estimate that the nets, 46 million of which we think would not otherwise be distributed, will avert roughly 67,000 deaths. We have supported AMF’s work for more than 15 years, and the insecticide-treated nets it procures and distributes remain one of the most cost-effective ways we’ve found to save lives.

This grant, which involved a more rigorous investigation process than most, is part of a larger story about scaling our team and systems to handle substantially more funding while deepening our research rigor. Last year, we directed more than $400 million to highly cost-effective programs to save and improve lives and, this year, we expect our grantmaking to approach, and possibly exceed, $1 billion. This increase in grantmaking aims to meet global needs faster and more effectively.

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• Planning and coordinating at scale: This grant is nearly three times the size of our previous largest grant (also to AMF) and is concentrated in one country rather than being spread across several. The grant commits funds at the beginning of a multi-year planning cycle, which we think will make these campaigns easier to plan. It also aims to ensure that campaigns happen across all 26 of DRC’s provinces, in some cases on an expedited timeline. This shift in our funding approach makes close coordination with AMF and other partners—including the Global Fund, which is funding much of the net distribution, and the national malaria program—even more important than before.

• Rethinking how often nets are distributed: In most countries, nets are distributed every three years, but evidence shows that nets wear out more quickly in DRC, in part because of the climate. Our analysis of national survey data, net durability studies, and AMF’s post-distribution monitoring suggests that nets in DRC last roughly 18 to 24 months. DRC had already shortened its campaign cycle, aiming to distribute nets every 30 months. With the support of the government, GiveWell is supporting net campaigns every 24 months in several provinces with high rates of malaria transmission, and funding evidence gathering so we can learn whether more frequent net campaigns is a cost-effective strategy for further reducing malaria rates. We think this approach will help further prevent malaria and potentially save more lives.