About MESA

Mission

MESA’s mission is to accelerate progress toward malaria elimination and eradication by connecting, synthesizing, and translating global malaria knowledge into timely, actionable evidence that is driven by and responsive to the priorities of malaria-endemic countries.

MESA’s role

MESA is a global malaria knowledge-to-action platform that facilitates the timely delivery of insights and evidence to decision makers to drive elimination and eradication.

Brief history

MESA, originally the Malaria Eradication Scientific Alliance, was established in 2011 from the Malaria Eradication Research Agenda (malERA), a global consultative process that comprehensively examined the science needed for malaria elimination and long-term eradication. malERA identified critical knowledge gaps across nine research and development areas, providing a unifying framework for the malaria research community.

In 2017, the agenda was updated through the malERA Refresh process reflecting evolving scientific priorities.

MESA operates on the premise that a global research agenda must be continuously sustained, coordinated, and optimized. As the Malaria Knowledge Hub, MESA provides a resource platform for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners, catalyzing research and evidence-informed action across the malaria ecosystem to accelerate progress toward malaria elimination and eradication.

MESA is hosted by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) supporting its role as a WHO Collaborating Centre for malaria control, elimination and eradication. MESA is funded through a grant from the Gates Foundation.

What we do

MESA accelerates progress toward malaria elimination and eradication by ensuring that existing knowledge is accessible at the right time. As the global malaria knowledge hub, MESA reduces fragmentation across the malaria research ecosystem and accelerates the pathway from evidence generation to real-world impact by aligning research with endemic-country priorities and decision-making needs. We advance this mission through three interlinked strategic priorities:

Connect the malaria science
ecosystem

We map, connect and convene partners to promote alignment of research efforts with the priorities of malaria-endemic countries. Our dynamic malaria projects database enables continuous mapping of ongoing research and implementation activities, capturing operational insights and emerging needs, to foster collaboration and support coordinated research agendas across the continuum from control to elimination and eradication.

Synthesize and translate knowledge
to inform action

We support synthesis of emerging insights, best practices, published and grey literature to identify knowledge gaps to inform action toward malaria elimination and eradication.

Accelerate the uptake of evidence
into policy and practice

We enable rapid and equitable use of emerging evidence by researchers, national malaria programs, policymakers and implementers. Through targeted dissemination, timely knowledge products, and engagement with decision-makers, MESA helps to ensure new insights inform policies, strategies, and program actions for real world impact.