Malaria afflicts many people in the developing world, and due to its direct and indirect costs it has widespread impacts on growth and development. The global impact of malaria on human health, productivity, and general well-being is profound. Human activity, including agriculture, has been recognized as one of the reasons for the increased intensity of malaria around the world, because it supports the breeding of mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite.

The publication reviews forty years of development experience and concludes that donors and partner countries alike have tended to look at capacity development as mainly a technical process, or as a transfer of knowledge or institutions from North to South.