20231211.COP28 Health Pavilion event

Climate change is a threat to the health of the communities we serve: health workers speak out at COP28

Events, Global health, The Geneva Learning Foundation

The Geneva Learning Foundation’s Charlotte Mbuh spoke today at the COP28 Health Pavilion in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). Watch the speech at COP28… Good afternoon. I am Charlotte Mbuh. I have worked for the health of children and families in Cameroon for over 15 years. I am one of more than 5,500 health workers from 68 countries who have connected to share our observations of how climate is affecting the health of those we serve.  “Going back home to the community where I grew up as a child, I was shocked to see that most of the rivers we used to swim and fish in have all dried up, and those that are still there have become very shallow so that you can easily walk through a river you required a boat to cross in years past.” These are the words of Samuel Chukwuemeka Obasi, a health worker from …

Investing in the health workforce is vital to face climate change: A new report shares insights from over 1,200 on the frontline

Investing in the health workforce is vital to tackle climate change: A new report shares insights from over 1,200 on the frontline

Global health, The Geneva Learning Foundation

Geneva, Switzerland (1 December 2023) – The Geneva Learning Foundation has published a new report titled “On the frontline of climate change and health: A health worker eyewitness report.” The report shares first-hand experiences from over 1,200 health workers in 68 countries who are first responders already battling climate consequences on health. As climate change intensifies health threats, local health professionals may offer one of the most high-impact solutions. Charlotte Mbuh of The Geneva Learning Foundation, said: “Local health workers are trusted advisers to communities. They are first to observe health consequences of climate change, before the global community is able to respond. They can also be first to respond to limit damage to health.” Listen to Charlotte Mbuh’s speech at the COP28 Healthcare Pavilion on 11 December 2023. Read the full speech… “Health workers are already taking action with communities to mitigate and respond to the health effects of climate change, often with …

Aerial view of a flooded urban residential area of Dera Allah yar city in Jaffarabad District, Baluchistan Province, Pakistan. Credit: Gavi/2022/Asad Zaidi

Ten eyewitness reports from the frontline of climate change and health

Global health

The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) has created a platform enabling health workers to describe the impacts of climate change on their local communities. Here are ten of the most striking reports. Published on 30 November 2023 on the Gavi #VaccinesWork blog. Written by Ian Jones for Gavi. In July 2023, more than 1,200 health workers from 68 countries shared their experiences of changes in climate and health at a unique Geneva Learning Foundation event designed to shed light on the realities of climate impacts on the health of the communities they serve. A special TGLF report – On the frontline of climate change and health: A health worker eyewitness report – includes a compendium and analysis of these 1,200 health workers’ observations and insights. Here are ten of the most striking. Samuel Chukwuemeka Obasi, who works for the Ministry of Health in Abuja, Nigeria, has noticed big changes to the …

Health worker voices and agenda at COP28

Before, during, and after COP28: Climate crisis and health, through the eyes of health workers from Africa, Asia, and Latin America 

Events, Global health

Samuel Chukwuemeka Obasi, a health professional from Nigeria: “Going back home to the community where I grew up as a child, I was shocked to see that most of the rivers we used to swim and fish in have all dried up, and those that are still there have become very shallow so that you can easily walk through a river you required a boat to cross in years past.” In July 2023, more than 1200 health workers from 68 countries shared their experiences of changes in climate and health, at a unique event designed to shed light on the realities of climate impacts on the health of the communities they serve. Before, during and after COP28, we are sharing health workers’ observations and insights. Follow The Geneva Learning Foundation to learn how climate change is affecting health in multiple ways: On 1 December 2023, TGLF will be publishing a …

Rethinking Workplace Learning and Development

Learning-based complex work: how to reframe learning and development

About me, Global health, Interviews, Published articles, The Geneva Learning Foundation

The following is excerpted from Watkins, K.E. and Marsick, V.J., 2023. Chapter 4. Learning informally at work: Reframing learning and development. In Rethinking Workplace Learning and Development. Edward Elgar Publishing. This chapter’s final example illustrates the way in which organically arising IIL (informal and incidental learning) is paired with opportunities to build knowledge through a combination of structured education and informal learning by peers working in frequently complex circumstances. Reda Sadki, president of The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF), rethought L&D for immunization workers in many roles in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Adapting to technology available to participants from the countries that joined this effort, Sadki designed a mix of experiences that broke out of the limits of “training” as it was often designed. He addressed, the inability to scale up to reach large audiences; difficulty to transfer what is learned; inability to accommodate different learners’ starting places; the need …

What learning science underpins peer learning for Global Health?

What learning science underpins peer learning for Global Health?

Events, Global health

Watch Reda Sadki’s presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) Symposium on 19 October 2023 Most significant learning that contributes to improved performance takes place outside of formal training. It occurs through informal and incidental forms of learning between peers. Effective use of peer learning requires realizing how much we can learn from each other (peer learning), experiencing the power of defying distance to solve problems together (remote learning), and feeling a growing sense of belonging to a community (social learning), emergent across country borders and health system levels (networked learning). At the ASTMH annual meeting Symposium organized by Julie Jacobson, two TGLF Alumnae, María Monzón from Argentina and Ruth Allotey from Ghana, will be sharing their analyses and reflections of how they turned peer learning into action, results, and impact. In his presentation, Reda Sadki, president of The Geneva Learning Foundation …

TechNet conference how to to open access to global health conferences-small

What did we learn from the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) in its first two years?

Global health, Innovation, The Geneva Learning Foundation

At a World Health Organization conference in Panama, The Geneva Learning Foundation is hosting an Innovations Café today. The session’s title is “Connected learning to accelerate local impact at global scale: Year 1 of the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030)”. What is the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030)? Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) is the world’s strategy, adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2020, to achieve the global goals for immunization. In March 2022, The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) launched a call to form a movement in support of IA2030. By June 2023, over 16,000 health workers were participating. More than 80% work in districts and health facilities and over half are government workers. 70% work in fragile contexts such as armed conflict, remote areas, urban poverty, and other challenges. This ground-up commitment has the potential to complement the top-down work of the IA2030 global partners, if this …

Health performance management in complex adaptive systems

How do we reframe health performance management within complex adaptive systems?

Global health, Learning, Research

We need a conceptual framework that situates health performance management within complex adaptive systems. This is a summary of an important paper by Tom Newton-Lewis et al. It describes such a conceptual framework that identifies the factors that determine the appropriate balance between directive and enabling approaches to performance management in a given context. Existing performance management approaches in many low- and middle-income country health systems are largely directive, aiming to control behaviour using targets, performance monitoring, incentives, and answerability to hierarchies. Health systems are complex and adaptive: performance outcomes arise from interactions between many interconnected system actors and their ability to adapt to pressures for change. In my view, this important paper mends an important broken link in theories of change that try to consider learning beyond training. The complex, dynamic, multilevel nature of health systems makes outcomes difficult to control, so directive approaches to performance management need to …

Collective Intelligence Cambridge Digital Education Futures Initiative

The COVID-19 Peer Hub as an example of Collective Intelligence (CI) in practice

Global health, The Geneva Learning Foundation

A new article by colleagues at the Cambridge Digital Education Futures Initiative (DEFI) illustrates academic understanding of Collective Intelligence (CI) through the COVID-19 Peer Hub, a peer learning initiative organized by over 6,000 frontline health workers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, with support from The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF), in response to the initial shock of the pandemic on immunization services that placed 80 million children at risk of missing lifesaving vaccines. Learn more about the COVID-19 Peer Hub… From the abstract: Collective Intelligence (CI) is important for groups that seek to address shared problems. CI in human groups can be mediated by educational technologies. The current paper presents a framework to support design thinking in relation to CI educational technologies. Our framework is grounded in an organismic-contextualist developmental perspective that orients enquiry to the design of increasingly complex and integrated CI systems that support coordinated group problem solving …

Teach to Reach

Teach to Reach: peer learning at scale

The Geneva Learning Foundation

Teach to Reach are fast-paced, dynamic digital events connecting local and global practitioners to each other in a new, potentially transformative shared dialogue.  Teach to Reach and other TGLF special events rally thousands, serving as powerful moments of inspiration, providing the amazing sensation of being connected with thousands of fellow, like-minded people and the impetus to transform this feeling into shared purpose and action.  Meet, network, and learn with colleagues from all over the world  Successive editions of TGLF’s flagship event series, “Teach to Reach: Connect”, enabled a cumulative total of 27,000 health professionals to share experiences, test approaches, and identify solutions with international experts listening and learning with them.  To learn more about the Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF), download our brochure, listen to our podcast, view our latest livestreams, subscribe to our insights, and follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Or introduce yourself to our Partnerships team.