The Lord Mayor of Kampala Erias Lukwago yesterday addressed a Joint Workshop and Panel of Mayors at the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership to End Malaria Annual meeting on Multisectoral Action in Accra, Ghana.
The RBM Partnership to End Malaria Vector Control Working Group Annual Meeting, convenes the Global Malaria Vector Control Community to exchange best practices and relevant research for current and future Malaria vector control operations.
He expressed gratitude to the CEO of RBM, Dr. Corine Karema and the entire team, for organising the dialogue and spearheading the global efforts towards eradicating Malaria from the tropical countries.
The Lord Mayor gave an overview of the situation analysis of Malaria prevalence in Kampala, especially amongst the urban poor.
While calling for evaluation of the progress towards realisation of the ideals of the WHO Malaria strategy 2030, the Lord Mayor underscored the urgent need for the Global platforms to exert pressure on African Heads of State to honour their commitments to allocate atleast 15% of the National Budget towards health as enshrined in the AU Abuja Declaration of 2001.
The Lord Mayor pitched for creation of a Continental Platform that will provide a basket fund to finance City based initiatives, especially in countries like Uganda citing experience from existing initiatives like The Bloomburg Philanthropies Initiatives on Road safety, Mayors Migration Council, Convenant of Mayors in Sub Saharan Africa, Alliance of Mayors Against AIDS etc.
He rooted for expedition of the processes required to roll out vaccination against Malaria calling for more investment in research areas of vector control rather than focusing so much on parasite management.
Following the Lord Mayor’s passionate presentation for City based initiatives, a resolution was passed to establish a Continental framework for channeling global assistance towards city based ‘Healthy Cities Healthy People’ initiative against infectious diseases especially in slum areas and Kampala was chosen amongst the pilot cities.
