Energetics helped the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) work with health officials, medical professionals, researchers, and non-governmental organizations in 38 African countries to prepare a decision-making framework to support timely and informed policy decisions over a future malaria vaccine, and published a website explaining the decision-making framework’s history and use.

Client Need

When a malaria vaccine becomes available, stakeholders in malaria-endemic countries will face the complex task of deciding if and how to integrate it with existing health programs. Delays from slow decision making could cost countless lives. MVI sought to determine (1) how African countries reach health policy decisions over new interventions, (2) what they need for informed decision making, and (3) what tool could assist in preventing delays.

Solution

Energetics designed a stakeholder engagement process to identify the data that African health policy decision makers will need to have, and the processes they and others will need to carry out, to enable prompt decision making regarding a future malaria vaccine’s introduction. In a series of national and regional meetings, local experts shared updates on malaria vaccine development, provided information about their country's decision-making processes and data needs, and evaluated the draft decision-making framework. Energetics captured this information in meeting reports, assisted in the development and validation of the Decision-Making Framework (DMF) tool, and designed a website to explain the tool’s availability and purpose.

Results

Because of its highly participatory creation process, the DMF accurately represents the needs of African decision makers and is freely available online through a multilingual, interactive website. This framework will facilitate more effective cooperation between governments and partners at national, regional, and global levels, so that a malaria vaccine can arrive to those who need it within one to three years of licensure.

Visit the Malaria Decision-Making Framework website for more information.