Women’s Leadership in IRS

This week’s Fist Bump goes to VectorLink Zambia’s Operations Manager, Mambwe Kabaso. She participated in the Women Leaders in Global Health Conference, discussing why women’s leadership is necessary in the fight against malaria.

Female participation in indoor residual spraying (IRS) has improved over the years, but women still face bias as IRS is deemed a male field. Interventions like ensuring women’s privacy and using lighter equipment has enabled higher levels of women’s participation. In Zambia, the inclusion of women in IRS has correlated with higher spray coverage although research has not been conducted to prove this.

Kabaso is a clear leader. She joined the PMI VectorLink project as a district coordinator, working in the Mansa and Chembe districts. Mansa district had low community acceptance, but under Kabaso’s guidance, finished its spray campaign on-time for the first time. This success led to her assisting and mentoring other district coordinators before becoming Operations Manager.

There are many benefits to having more women working within IRS. Women are often the ones preparing the houses for IRS, so seeing other women as Spray Operators, Team Leaders, Supervisors, or Kabaso as the Operations Manager is motivating, and often helps community members feel more comfortable with opening their homes to be sprayed.

Thank you for all your hard work, Kabaso, and for shedding light on the importance of women’s leadership in IRS and in the fight against malaria.

If you missed the conference, you can view it here, but you need to create an account to view it: Women Leaders in Global Health 2021 (conference.tc).