Tripartite partnership, compared with the bilateral model, is envisioned as an opportunity to foster stronger and more trusting partnerships [1]. However, China has historically been characterized as principally reliant on bilateral engagement in global health [2]. The China-Tanzania Cooperation Project on Malaria Control was conducted by National Institute of Parasitic Diseases at China CDC and Chinese Center for Tropical Diseases Research, Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania and funding agencies from 2015 to 2022, with an aim to explore the applicability of Chinese experience on malaria control to reduce malaria disease burden in the local context of Tanzania. In the tripartite project funded by the former UK Department for International Development (DFID) and later the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), China’s partners were expected to share the extensively parallel practices achieved from the control and elimination of malaria for over 70 years, UK’s partners were to deliver resources and design global health strategies, while Tanzanian local staff collaborated with triangular partners to ensure the project implementation [3]. In the project, the trilateral cooperation has transparent management mechanism to ensure the concrete management and implementation of the project [4] (Additional file 1: Figure S1). This Brief is to provide recommendations for China’s engagement in global health by distilling the experience from the innovative tripartite partnership of the project.
Impressive achievements were made through the pioneering efforts of triangular stakeholders of the project: (1) 1,7-malaria Reactive Community-based Testing and Response (1,7-mRCTR) was successfully derived from local context sharing Chinese 1-3-7 norm through the field implementation; (2) malaria prevalence in the intervention wards declined by 81% from 2015 to 2018 and further declined by 55% from 2018 to 2022 [3]; (3) a local team composed of 37 Tanzanian community health workers were built to be paired with Chinese on-site technical staff to ensure the project implementation and sustainability[3]; (4) the project’s effectiveness and achievements contributed to the scaling up of 1,7-mRCTR in three other African countries including Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Zambia for sustainable development [4].
The project also encountered some challenges in this trilateral partnership, (1) China’s immature systems for global health engagement with scarce resources allocated to this innovative partnership [5], e.g. the complicated procedures of funding transfer from China to Tanzania, the time-consuming visa application for Chinese staff’s field support, and the scarce resources. Therefore, it is essential to mobilize resources for the trilateral collaboration with developing a solid system for China’s participation in global health. In order to effectively mobilize resources for these trilateral collaborations, it is imperative to develop a robust logistics s