Kinshasa, April 15th, 2025 (CPA) – The ‘Gender equality fund in the fight against malaria’ project was launched on Tuesday at a ceremony in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo by the youth body for the fight against malaria, with technical support from the national malaria control program. On April 15th, 2025, we officially launched the ‘Fund for gender equality in the fight against malaria in the DRC’ project, which is financed by the Global Fund via the Alliance of African Leaders against Malaria (ALMA),’ said Alexis Kabambi, national coordinator of the youth corps against malaria. According to the coordinator, this project has a single role, that of involving women and young people in the fight against gender-related obstacles and malaria. ‘This project is a far cry for the DRC’s youth malaria corps, which has been working in different provinces of the country since 2021 to fight malaria at community level, which is why we have been able to obtain two years‘ funding to date’, he said. Dr Boudouin Matela, Director of the National Malaria Control Program, explained that the project has two objectives, namely to strengthen the accountability mechanism. ‘Here, those in charge will help us to monitor the progress of this disease in order to reduce malaria-related mortality. This responsibility should lead us to resolve the problem of the gender approach’, he continued.
Calls for support from the authorities in implementing the project
In the same context, the project coordinator appealed to the authorities to support the implementation of this project in the DRC. ‘After this official launch, we are thinking of organising a meeting with national MPs, as well as a meeting with the chair of the parliamentary malaria group and the chair of the National Assembly’s socio-cultural commission, so that the latter can take ownership of the implementation of these projects and support their implementation in the various provinces of the DRC, especially in the mining regions’, he said. He also asked parliamentarians to get involved in lobbying for an increase in the budget allocated to health, particularly in the fight against malaria, so that the DRC ceases to be a malaria-stricken country where many people die every year. He went on to say that this Equality Fund project in the fight against malaria will enable awareness-raising activities to be carried out in the community and advocacy to be conducted with the country’s various authorities, in particular with the Head of State via the various ministries, so that he can take ownership of this project, which is being carried out by young people in his country who have agreed to pacify the fight against malaria by responding to the alliance of African leaders against malaria, in which the President of the DRC is himself a stakeholder. For M. D’jems Banda, delegate of the Alliance of African Leaders against Malaria (ALMA), this project concerns 6 African countries, namely the DRC, the Republic of Estwatini, Mozambique , the Republic of Uganda and the Republic of Zambia, with the aim of strengthening the scorecard accountability mechanism to address and resolve gender-related risk factors and barriers to access to health services, and supporting women-led youth malaria corps to carry out advocacy and promote malaria control policies and programs that address gender inequalities.
For her part, Dr Clarisse Mbo Modiri, Head of the Community Malaria Management Service, revealed that the report of the National Malaria Control Programme (PNLP), in 2024, showed that the DRC had recorded 29,123,262 cases, including 13,903,437 (47.7%) among children under 5, and 21,696 deaths, including 15,091 (69%) among children under 5. ACP/