Malaria: turning the tide

“Why, despite the multiple actions of the government and its partners, does malaria continue to climb? Certainly, something is missing somewhere.”
Sawadogo Lassane, community health worker, Burkina Faso

Find what is missing with health workers who face malaria like you do. Learn from their experience. Then act on one challenge in your own work, with peers beside you.

Join the first course · Rejoindre le premier cours en français

More than 2,000 health workers from more than 30 countries joined the launch. Free. In English and French. Certificate from The Geneva Learning Foundation.

You see what the report does not show

“You are missing something. These mosquitoes bite us around 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Working people are outside under the trees, and there are no bed nets there.”
Henri Stanley NYAFE, Mbandaka, Democratic Republic of the Congo

“The numbers the expert showed are too low. We have many traditional healers in our neighborhoods and villages who never report to the main health clinic.”
François Mufolo Balimumu, Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo

“I work blind”
Beman Ouattara Ali, state nurse in remote villages, Côte d’Ivoire

Each of these is a missing piece. Each came from someone doing the work.

The big numbers tell the same story from far away. About 610,000 people died of malaria in 2024. About 95 out of 100 of those deaths were in the WHO African Region. Only 47 out of 100 children with fever who sought care got a test. In several countries, most people with a fever go to a private pharmacy or drug shop first.

Plans keep getting better on paper. What happens in your health zone is a different question. You are the one who can answer it.

Your colleagues have tried what you are about to try

A doctor in the Democratic Republic of the Congo talked with an informal pharmacist about fever and testing. Weeks later, the pharmacist told him:

“Doctor, since we talked, I now send all my customers with fever to the health centre for a test before I sell any medicine.”
An informal pharmacist, quoted by Dr Tarcisse Kilara Kapene, doctor at district level, Democratic Republic of the Congo

That is how peer learning works. Someone tells you what they did. You test it where you are. You tell others what happened.

It does not mean you copy what worked somewhere else.

“One story does not prove what is going to work somewhere else. It shows what is possible and what to test. Where experience and routine data and trial evidence disagree, do not choose. Ask why they differ. That question is where the next answer lives.”
Reda Sadki, founder, The Geneva Learning Foundation

Here is what you do in each course:

Share what you saw in your own work.
Two peers read your work and give you feedback.
You read and review the work of three peers.
You use what they told you to make your thinking stronger.

Three steps, one path

Step 1. Learn from what more than a thousand health workers saw

Turning the tide: learn from real-world health worker experience

More than a thousand health workers shared their experience of malaria at Teach to Reach 11, with the RBM Partnership to End Malaria. Their stories became a report, published on World Malaria Day 2026.

“Three of my children, aged one, three, and five, got malaria even though they sleep under a bed net. The youngest had to go to the hospital.”
Dr Bisimwa Muzusa Emmanuel, doctor, Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo

You work through eight themes from the report, from bed nets to vaccines to government action. Then you take on three challenges:

Private providers. Most people with a fever go outside public clinics first. Build a stronger link with pharmacies, drug shops, private clinics, and faith-based facilities.
Quality and use of local data. Help what you and your colleagues see count in the figures that reach decision makers.
New malaria tools. Help your community get ready for something it has not yet seen.

You leave with footholds for action, already tested by peers who do work like yours. You earn a Certificate of contribution, set at EQF level 7.

Start step 1 · En français

Step 2. Know what each new tool can do, and what it cannot

Malaria: new tools to turn the tide

For you, a tool is new when it reaches your community.

“Seven (7) out Sixteen (16) regions in Ghana are currently implementing Malaria vaccination for children. My own region (Eastern) is not part of the implementing regions.”
Francis Teye, Ghana Health Service, Eastern Region, Ghana

You look at four groups of tools: vaccines and antibodies, medicines, vector control, and testing and tracking. For each tool you ask three questions. What can it do? What can it not do? How strong is the evidence?

Then you prepare the words you would use to introduce one tool to a leader, a mother, a father, and a child. People will ask you hard questions.

“My community keeps asking why can’t we get rid of malaria?”
Patrick Okello, public health specialist, Uganda

You do not need a science degree. You need to know how malaria affects your community. You earn a Certificate from The Geneva Learning Foundation, and it opens the door to the full programme.

Start step 2 · En français

Step 3. Act on one challenge, every week, with peers

Impact Accelerator Launch Pad, opens 9 November 2026

Knowing what to do is rarely the hardest part. Starting alone is.

Derick Asare, a pharmacist and public health practitioner in Ghana, named one problem many of you know. He called it “a feedback loop that data goes up and never comes back down to the community that produced it.”

In the Impact Accelerator, you pick one malaria challenge from your own work. You find its root cause. You write a plan with one goal. Peers check your plan. Then you act, using only the resources you already have. Every week you set a goal, check in with peers, and report what you did.

You can choose one of three priorities:

The data mirror. Compare your registers with what is reported in DHIS2, and fix what does not match.
Mapping the market and building the bridge. Find the private providers in your area and set up referral and reporting with them, for example by WhatsApp.
Deployment readiness. Talk with your community before a new tool arrives.

Does the weekly rhythm help? In 2019, 95 out of 100 health workers who joined the weekly cycle were carrying out a project. Only 57 out of 101 who did not join were. This is a comparison, not a trial. It shows what is possible.

You earn a Certificate of contribution, and you have a change you can show.

Join the Launch Pad · Rejoindre le Tremplin

You will not do this alone

Someone will call you back.

“Do not suffer in silence. We have Ambassadors among us and we are all available.”
Patrice Bamulenga, TGLF Ambassador, Democratic Republic of the Congo

“my own goal is not to leave anyone alone with their difficulties”
Louise Nkusu Lusangu, TGLF Ambassador

“It was really touching, and it really pushed me to go all the way to the end”
Martine Yowa, on the peers she did not know who helped her during peer review

You join a network of more than 60,000 health professionals. Ambassadors meet every Wednesday to support learners. You can take part from your phone.

Your colleagues depend on your feedback, and you depend on theirs. Bring one colleague with you.

Why it has to be you

“Not evidence, not guidance, not medicines or vaccines or financing or a functioning health system. What it does is answer the question guidance cannot answer: how does this work here, with these people, under these conditions? Only the person standing in that clinic can tell you.”
Reda Sadki, founder, The Geneva Learning Foundation, on what peer learning does

Something is missing somewhere. Help find it.

Join the first course · Rejoindre le premier cours

Read the stories behind this page

Malaria: turning the tide is free, in English and French. It is offered by The Geneva Learning Foundation (La Fondation Apprendre Genève), a partner of the RBM Partnership to End Malaria since 2024. It is aligned with the WHO Global Technical Strategy for Malaria 2016 to 2030.