Thank you Professor Coll-Seck [Executive Director of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership], Ms. [Geeta Rao] Gupta [UNICEF's Deputy Executive Director].

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,

Today we launch the Roll Back Malaria Partnership report, A Decade of Partnership and Results.

It paints a picture of remarkable achievement.

Malaria is on the retreat across the globe.

Since the beginning of the century, malaria deaths and cases have fallen by half in more than 10 countries in Africa, and in most endemic countries.

Millions of pregnant women and young children in poor areas have been saved from this lethal, yet treatable, disease.

Millions of children are in school instead of languishing, sick, at home. They come home to healthier parents.

None of this would have been possible without a fifteen-fold increase in international funding for malaria control – and without creating a new way of doing business.

In the late 1990s, malaria was the top cause of child mortality in Africa.

Yet few fought to change the status quo. Efforts were disjointed. Piecemeal approaches led to piecemeal results.

Achievements in Africa, Asia and the Americas were undermined by drug resistance and resurgence.

Then, in 1998, a new malaria initiative emerged from the gloom.

Three UN agencies – WHO [World Health Organisation], UNICEF and UNDP [UN Development Programme] -- joined forces with the World Bank to found the Roll Back Malaria Partnership.

Ten years on, I appointed my Special Envoy for Malaria, Mr. Ray Chambers, who has further helped to bring together the private sector and all stakeholders in our common fight against malaria.

Our joint efforts have brought cohesion and resources to malaria control and drawn hundreds of partners under its umbrella.

Such multi-stakeholder alliances are the wave of the future.

We have saved the lives of more than one million children in sub-Saharan Africa.

And we have changed the way we think about malaria control.

Combating malaria has become a global health priority.

Three years ago, I called for malaria prevention and treatment programmes to be made universally available to at-risk populations by the end of 2010.

This was an ambitious goal, but today, I am pleased to confirm that 10 endemic countries have met their universal coverage targets for bed nets and vector control through indoor spraying.

These two interventions alone have reduced child mortality in Africa by an estimated 20 per cent.

This shows what can be achieved when all members of the international community join forces and align their efforts with those of developing countries.

But the work is nowhere near finished.

Although the successes of recent years are remarkable, they need to be sustained and expanded, to prevent the disease from resurging.

That is why our future goals are even more ambitious -- near-zero deaths by 2015 and the elimination of malaria in 10 additional countries.

The international community needs to go beyond business as usual, and all sectors of society will have a role to play: governments, international and non-governmental organizations, researchers and health professionals, businesses and philanthropies, celebrities and ordinary individuals.

Investing in malaria control is an investment in people, economies and nations.

I am encouraged by the rapid progress made in the past few years.

And I am eager to see this effort continue through 2015 and beyond.

Let me now turn to Professor Coll-Seck, Executive Director of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, who will present the results of the report in detail.

Thank you.