How The Leprosy Mission will fight to end leprosy over the next six years
Opinion from TLM's Strategy Working Group
A deep-dive on our new Global Strategy with the team that organised the strategy’s development. Dr Sunday Udo (Nigeria), Henno Couprie (Netherlands), Amanda Norman (UK), Dr Kaleb Kumar Budha (Nepal), Tina Mendia (India), Andrew Stott (New Zealand), Clara Volpi (TLM International)
In November 2024, The Leprosy Mission will be launching its new Global Strategy, a document that will guide the work of our organisation between 2025 and 2030 (you can read the full document at the end of this article). In this article, we – the working group that organised the development of the strategy - want to unpack what this strategy is going to mean for how we work, what we hope it will mean for the fight to defeat leprosy, and what it will mean for all our partners, particularly persons affected by leprosy.
This article is an act of transparency, showing where we are as an organisation and where we want to be. We also hope to inspire you, whether you are working for TLM, supporting us, partnering with us, or hoping to see your communities transformed. We believe this Global Strategy will galvanise our work, aligning all the teams of the world’s largest leprosy-focused organisation behind a specific set of goals that will enable us to achieve a world without leprosy.
We recognise that we will not achieve a world without leprosy by working on our own; we have a responsibility to use all of our resources in the best ways available to us and to do so in collaboration with any partner that is also motivated to see a world without leprosy.
Over the coming years, The Leprosy Mission will continue to focus on leprosy’s three zeroes: zero transmission, zero disability, and zero discrimination. All of these topics are interrelated and by choosing to focus on all three, we believe we will have the best opportunity to achieve our vision: leprosy defeated, lives transformed.
Although this vision and our work across the three zeroes is something we are carrying over from our previous strategy, there is a very specific focus under the new strategy. Each of the three zeroes has a clearly articulated goal and a related breakthrough that we believe we must make in order to achieve the goal.
Zero transmissionOur zero transmission goal is to see leprosy transmission interrupted (no more local transmission of M. leprae, evidenced by zero new autochthonous cases among children for at least five consecutive years in the countries where we work by 2035). This is an ambitious goal and to accomplish it, we believe we need breakthroughs in the tools that will allow us to interrupt transmission. Under this strategy, we will focus on researching, developing, and implementing evidence-based tools to interrupt transmission, especially early diagnostic tests and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP).
Zero disabilityOur zero disability goal is to ensure persons affected by leprosy will have prompt and appropriate access to services to prevent and manage leprosy disabilities in the countries where we work by 2035. To achieve this goal, we believe we need breakthroughs in treatment regimens. We are going to focus our efforts on researching, developing, and implementing appropriate treatment regimens to address leprosy-related complications, especially treating leprosy reactions.
We have chosen to focus our efforts here because we believe the paucity of currently available treatments is an injustice for persons affected by leprosy, something that leaders from Organisations of Persons Affected by Leprosy (OPLs) expressed to us when we consulted them on the development of this strategy.
Zero discrimination In the area of zero discrimination, our aspirational goal is that persons affected by leprosy will be included in society and will have equal access to their full rights and entitlements in the countries where we work. So that we can achieve this goal, we believe OPLs across the world need to see breakthroughs in how they are perceived within the fight to defeat leprosy; they must receive support from TLM and the wider sector so that they become the central players.
We will partner with, support, and connect OPLs so that they can be the central players in achieving greater inclusion and the reduction of discrimination. We believe their voices and the direction they provide should guide our work; we will achieve this goal by ensuring OPLs across our countries are formidable voices for change and able to act to achieve that change. Once again, this is a strategic direction that has been chosen following our consultation with OPL leaders.
Securing funding for all three zeroesOur goals are deliberately ambitious and we recognise that, in order to achieve them, we will need to increase our organisation’s income. Our funding goal is that by 2030 we will have grown our income by 50 percent compared to our 2023 income.. All of our Member countries will be committed to growing this income and ensuring it is sustainable. We recognise we need breakthroughs in our funding in the areas of: growth markets; fundraising sources; and fundraising innovation. Our goal is that investing in these breakthroughs will ensure we can fund our three zero goals to completion.
Photo credit: Tom Bradley
The Leprosy Mission is home to the world’s largest bank of leprosy expertise; we are responsible for the largest field teams, the most diverse research teams, and the highest number of leprosy hospitals. We say this not to brag, but to highlight that we understand the responsibility that comes with being home to this network of talented, committed individuals.
Our 2025-2030 strategy has united these teams around shared goals and each country team will now align their programmes and fundraising around these goals and the breakthroughs that we are aiming for. Crucially, we will do this in collaboration with each other and with our partners across the world.
For each of our four breakthroughs, we have established taskforces that are comprised of many of our leading minds in these areas from across the world. It is through these taskforces that we hope to share knowledge and learning and to run with innovative ideas (see this magazine’s article on innovation for more). These taskforces will be central to developing and maintaining momentum towards the breakthroughs we need to achieve in order to accomplish our goals.
However, our focus on collaboration is not only within our organisation. Under this new strategy, we have renewed and strengthened our focus on collaborating with any partner that is committed to the fight to defeat leprosy.
Our organisational values reflect our Christian faith and are outlined in the strategy as: compassion, justice, integrity, inclusion, humility, and collaboration. Collaboration is a value that has been added under this new strategic period. We have done this because of the priority and investment we place on working with organisations of persons affected by leprosy, communities, governments, health systems, and other organisations to achieve our vision.
Reflecting our Christian identity, we intend to build up these partnerships through trust and listening. We want these partnerships to be built on sustainable foundations. If you are a partner of The Leprosy Mission, over the coming years you can expect us to be finding ways to work better together so we can achieve a world without leprosy. That is particularly true if you are an Organisation of Persons affected by Leprosy (OPL).
The Leprosy Mission’s commitment to working with OPLs has been well established for many years. Under this new strategy, that commitment is taking on renewed focus.
This is a process that started with an extensive consultation with persons affected by leprosy and OPL leaders as we developed our strategy. We found that consultation process enlightening and helpful as we determined how our strategy could contribute to not only defeating leprosy, but also transforming lives. Because of that consultation, our strategy places a specific emphasis on improving treatments for leprosy reactions and providing better care for inner wellbeing. It also places an emphasis on supporting and partnering with OPLs to increase awareness of leprosy and end discrimination.
Throughout this new strategy, we want our OPL partners to have space to be actively engaged through our work. That means developing programmes in partnership, it means persons affected by leprosy having a seat at the table of our organisation’s decision making bodies – from Boards through to taskforces and other working groups, and it means our organisation being receptive to feedback and even criticism when it is needed.
A world without leprosy transmission, disability, and discrimination will be achieved more sustainably and more successfully if we walk this journey alongside persons affected by leprosy. That fundamental truth is a core component of this new strategy.
Although we have set ourselves clear goals, we recognise that the path to achieving them will not be straight; there will be challenges – foreseen and unforeseen – that will force a change in our path. We have seen that with the Covid pandemic, as well as with conflicts in Sudan, Myanmar, Mozambique, and Ethiopia and with natural disasters and climate crises across our Member countries.
Our new strategy acknowledges these challenges. Baked into the foundations of the strategy is our need to be an agile organisation. We will do this by monitoring, learning, and adapting. We will be open with our partners and our funders that circumstances and new knowledge may force us to adapt and find a new path to reaching our destination.
Photo credit: Rabik Upadhayay
As we step into this new strategy, we do so in the knowledge that circumstances may change. However, because we are united by our Christian identity and because we have our eyes set on our aspirational goals and the breakthroughs we need to make to achieve those goals, we are confident that all of our Member countries will be able to adapt and find the right path for their own contexts.
To have a sustainable impact, we believe we need to focus our efforts on four ways of working: collaboration and partnership; programmatic innovation; applied research; and advocacy.
If we collaborate well, if we mobilise local knowledge and implement new ideas in our programmes, if we find ways to implement research findings, and if we become an organisation that is expert at advocacy, we believe the work that we do will have a sustainable impact. Over the coming years we will invest in these ways of working, building connections between each approach as we go.
The Leprosy Mission’s teams across the world are aligned behind our aspirational goals and working towards the breakthroughs that will allow us to accomplish those goals. We will work together within TLM and with partners across the world as we pursue our goals.
If we are successful, early diagnostic tests and enhanced PEP will be being implemented across the world, we will have alleviated the suffering caused by leprosy reaction through better treatment, OPLs will be the leading players in the fight to end discrimination, and TLM will be raising £60m per year to ensure all our goals are funded until they are accomplished.
If we are successful, a world without leprosy will be closer than ever before.
