Stakeholders from public, private and social enterprises took part in the conclave
Godrej Group in partnership with the Vector Control Research Center (VCRC), Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) recently organised a conclave, ‘Achieving a malaria-free India’, in Mumbai. Stakeholders representing thought leaders from government, academia, private sector and social and non-profit organisations, discussed the need and merits of partnerships and collaborations in achieving a malaria-free India.
The key highlight of the conclave was a panel discussion on ‘Partnerships and Collaborations towards achieving malaria-free India’. Discussions on India’s current challenges, lessons from the past, the merits and challenges of partnerships, roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders and concrete next steps to make the vision a reality were discussed.
The panel comprised Prof Dr Sabesan, Senior Consultant, VCRC; Dr Anup Anvikar, National Institute of Malaria Research (NIMR); Shireen Mistree, India Health Fund, Tata Trusts; Neeraj Jain, Country Director, India, PATH and Vivek Gambhir, MD, Godrej Consumer Products; Indrajit Gupta, Director and Co-founder, Founding Fuel moderated the panel.
In his opening remarks, Adi Godrej, Chairman, Godrej Group, said, “Our Health Ministry has endorsed the goal of achieving a malaria-free India by 2030. Given the scale of the vision outlined, the importance of partnerships and collaborations is paramount. In line with this, our conclave aimed to create and facilitate impactful conversations on malaria elimination among key thought leaders from the ecosystem.”
The Chief Guest of the conclave, Dr Shampa Nag, Project Director, Caritas India, said, “Partnerships and collaborations present continuous opportunities within the ambit of multi-sectoral approach. They act as catalysing factors for bridging the physical and behavioural barriers and enabling the motivators/influencers to expand application of interventions as well as strengthening community systems alongside extending support to improve overall health systems. Leveraging distinctive strengths of stakeholders, the National Vector Borne Disease Control Program (NVBDCP), civil society organisations and corporate sector, donor & partner agencies, and others should reaffirm the commitment to advance our common elimination vision.”
The conclave saw meaningful deliberations on malaria elimination, including: individual paper presentations by students of VCRC on different aspects of vector borne diseases; a presentation on Godrej Consumer Products’ pilot project EMBED by Dr Vikas Goswami, Head Sustainability, Good & Green, Godrej Industries and Associate Companies and Dr Bitra George, Country Head, India, FHI 360. Prof Dr S Sabesan unveiled a research paper on ‘Public Private Partnership (PPP) towards malaria elimination in India’.