Ending Malaria Starts with a Smarter Market: Inside EBC’s Work with United to Beat Malaria
Through our partnership with the United Nations Foundation's United to Beat Malaria campaign, now in its second year, we're spotlighting a critical yet often overlooked reality. Malaria isn't just a health crisis. It's the product of interlocking environmental, economic and social breakdowns, and it’s spreading.
When Plastic Meets Parasites
Plastic pollution doesn’t just choke oceans. It creates pools of stagnant water where mosquitoes breed. Pair that with rising global temperatures and deforestation, and you’ve got the perfect conditions for malaria to thrive in new and unexpected places.
In regions like Colombia and the Amazon basin, deforestation is driving mosquito populations closer to rural and Indigenous communities. In Bangladesh, plastic-clogged waterways turn floods into mosquito hotbeds. Even parts of southern Europe are seeing isolated malaria cases, where climate shifts are extending the reach and survival rates of mosquitoes.
This isn't just a public health issue. It’s an economic one too. In sub-Saharan Africa, malaria knocks 1.3% off GDP every year. Across the continent, the disease leads to up to half a billion lost workdays and $12 billion in lost productivity annually. That toll falls heaviest on children, working-age adults, and low-income communities.
Building Resilience Through Finance
At EBC, we believe financial systems can help solve these global challenges. That’s why we’ve renewed our commitment to United to Beat Malaria in 2025 by becoming an official corporate sponsor of the Move Against Malaria 5K.
Between 25 April and 10 May, more than 200 EBC employees across the UK, Africa, Asia and Latin America took part in the global challenge not just to raise awareness, but to show that advocacy belongs in boardrooms, trading floors and team meetings.
"We often view malaria as a medical issue — but it's also an ecological one," said David Barrett, CEO of EBC Financial Group (UK) Ltd. "Plastic waste, deforestation, and warming temperatures all create the perfect storm for mosquitoes to thrive. Through our partnership with United to Beat Malaria, we're investing in scalable, frontline interventions that protect both people and ecosystems."
Where Policy Meets Purpose
In March, Barrett and our Director of Operations Samuel Hertz travelled to Washington, D.C. to attend the 2025 United to Beat Malaria Annual Leadership Summit, joining over 120 global advocates and policymakers. Their message on Capitol Hill was clear: continued funding for anti-malaria programmes like the President’s Malaria Initiative, The Global Fund, and UN-led interventions is not just a humanitarian obligation. It's an investment in health equity and global economic stability.
"Finance can be a force for regeneration," Barrett added. "That's why we're supporting community-led health interventions, amplifying awareness, and backing solutions that address the root causes — not just the symptoms — of inequality."
Making Impact Real
Our collaboration with United to Beat Malaria is more than symbolic. It directly funds insecticide-treated bed nets, rapid diagnostic kits and antimalarial treatments in the areas where they’re most needed. In 2024 alone, the campaign helped protect 1.67 million people across sub-Saharan Africa and 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. These are regions where climate vulnerability and limited healthcare access intersect most sharply.
We’re proud to be driving that impact not just as a financial institution, but as a responsible global partner.
Because if we want to stop malaria, we must first understand what enables it. Climate instability. Economic fragility. Environmental neglect. It’s time finance took its place in solving them all.
Disclaimer:
Investment involves risk. The content of this report is not an investment advice and does not constitute any offer or solicitation to offer or recommendation of any investment product.
Publication date:
2025-06-18 04:03:22 (GMT)
