For decades, Africa's malaria strategy has focused almost exclusively on disease control through indoor mosquito management and personal protection — bed nets, indoor spraying, and individual-level interventions. But this approach alone isn’t working. Progress against malaria in the African region has slowed significantly, with cases declining by just 5% since 2015 and mortality by 16%, according to the World Health Organization.

Experts now argue it’s time to shift from disease-centric, indoor mosquito management to more robust integrated mosquito management strategies. That means taking a tiered approach, starting with reducing mosquito breeding sites, treating water sources with larvicides, and then targeting adult mosquitoes. “The tendency will probably be to think about controlling mosquitoes when they are flying only. But they are actually more vulnerable when they are not flying, usually when they are in the water,” explained Silas Majambere, EMEA Health Business Manager at Valent BioSciences.

This approach, known as larval source management, has proven both cost-effective and sustainable. "The conversation is shifting away from just talking about a disease and saying, how do we take those limited public health dollars and manage the mosquito so that we can manage multiple diseases for those dollars?" said Jason Clark, Managing Director for global public health and forest health at Valent BioSciences.Some countries are already moving in this direction.

In Benin, the government is framing mosquito control not just as a health issue but as an economic one. The government is focusing on tourism as one of the key pillars of growth for the country, and the presence of mosquito-borne diseases is a direct threat to that, explained Sinde Chekete, advisor to the President of Benin. “We believe that investing in mosquito control will ultimately bring resources, will bring revenue, because we'll be able to welcome more tourists… and reduce the overall cost of malaria,” he said.

Chekete, Majambere, and Clark joined Devex executive editor Kate Warren to discuss the shift toward integrated mosquito management in a special Devex podcast episode sponsored by Valent BioSciences.

With the U.S. Agency for International Development officially ceasing operations as the main U.S. foreign aid agency on July 1, the State Department now faces the daunting task of spending an estimated $20 billion before the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30 — without the 10,000 staff members who previously managed such distributions. The administration is legally required to spend money appropriated by Congress, or find legal justification for not spending it, as seen in earlier rescission efforts that returned $9 billion to the U.S. Treasury.

Meanwhile, USAID Deputy Administrator for Management and Resources Ken Jackson's recent tour of nine countries — including Belgium, Kenya, and the Philippines — to oversee mission closures, has drawn criticism from displaced staff who view the visits as poorly timed during their difficult transitions.

With many NGOs forced to restructure or face closure, some organizations are exploring mergers and partnerships to survive, with a new initiative led by Accountability Lab helping them pivot.

Devex Business Editor David Ainsworth discusses the latest developments in these stories with reporters Michael Igoe and Elissa Miolene.

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While the abrupt cuts to official development assistance and closure of the U.S. Agency for International Development have upended the existing global development landscape and multilateral framework, they also represent an opportunity to reimagine a more just and equitable international system, said Open Society Foundations President Binaifer Nowrojee.

In a podcast recording with Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar at Casa Devex during the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in Sevilla, Spain, Nowrojee emphasized the shifting power dynamics that are emerging and the need to focus on building strong domestic institutions and national capacity. “What we have is national architecture that’s completely underused. National development banks could play a role and build a different set of economic opportunities inside countries,” Nowrojee said.

The conversation also emphasized the urgent need to mobilize domestic resources to close the development finance gap — including through better international tax cooperation to help counter the $200 billion lost annually through corporate tax avoidance — and a fairer approach to debt. Today, 3.3 billion people live in countries that spend more on debt repayments than on health or education. “The global north actually gives pennies in aid compared to the dollars flowing out of the global south,” Nowrojee said.

This special episode of This week in global development podcast was sponsored by the Open Society Foundations.

With aid budgets under pressure globally, delegates at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in Sevilla, Spain, are urgently exploring innovative ways to fund global development. But as the spotlight shifts toward private capital, there’s a growing concern that essential interventions without immediate financial returns — such as health investments — could be overlooked.

“We’re very clear that the cheapest money — concessional money, grant financing, and very concessional loans — should be allocated to those investments that give you this massive societal return, but not necessarily a financial return,” said Kalpana Kochhar, director of development policy and finance at the Gates Foundation, in an onstage conversation with Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar.

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, demonstrates how strategic health investments can pay off over time. “Gavi has graduated a number of countries who originally needed that subsidy to bring in vaccines and help purchase them at a lower price, but now [those countries] are doing it on their own,” Kumar said. However at the recent Gavi replenishment round, pledges fell short by about $2.9 billion of its total budget request.

The discussion also highlighted new opportunities to attract private investment in health manufacturing — from vaccine production to locally made bed nets — and reflected on the progress made since the last Financing for Development conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, about a decade ago.

This special episode of This week in global development was sponsored by the Gates Foundation.

Development leaders have converged on Sevilla, Spain, for the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, or FfD4 — the first such gathering in a decade — as shrinking aid budgets and a U.S. retreat from multilateral commitments reshape the sector.

At the 2015 conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, official development assistance was at record levels amid ambitious “billions to trillions” rhetoric — the idea that limited public funds could catalyze massive private investment to tackle global challenges such as climate change.

Today’s backdrop includes the pandemic fallout, inflation, the war in Ukraine, and sweeping aid cuts. The U.S. participated in outcome document negotiations until the final stages, reportedly proposing 400 amendments to soften the language on climate and gender before withdrawing entirely, citing too many “red lines.”
In this special live podcast episode recorded at Casa Devex, Devex’s events hub for the next few days, reporters Elissa Miolene and Jesse Chase-Lubitz sit down with Executive Editor Kate Warren to discuss what’s at stake and why this “once-in-a-decade” forum has taken on heightened significance.