The Geneva Learning Foundation’s Reda Sadki spoke on the expert panel at the launch of the Nexa funding announcement in London on 21 June 2026, in conversation with panelists Dr Devotha Nyambo of the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology in Tanzania, Dr Claude Pirmez of Fiocruz in Brazil. The panel was moderated by the Science for Africa Foundation’s Doris Wangari.
On why local voices must be reached
Doris Wangari: Many global conversations about climate and health happen very far away from the communities that experience these impacts. Why is it important to reach out to local actors and amplify their voices?
Thank you for the great question, and hello to everyone here.
At The Geneva Learning Foundation, we believe it is critical to make that conjunction between local action and global actors.
There is a big gap, and there is a risk of falling into that gap from both sides of the fence.
There is a backstory to this survey.
In 2023, we were working with the communities we nurture – a network of local actors across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, with about 70% of the network in West and Central Africa.
We kept hearing some pretty worrying things from them about the impacts of climate change on health.
So we said: why don’t we ask the community? 4,700 people showed up to that event in 2023.
That is when we felt we had a responsibility to go further.
We did the first part of our mission: to ask the community, to listen, and then to give back to the community what we had learned.
But we realised that at a time when there was real mobilisation by global actors, with a lot of interest and goodwill from international partners, we were not going to be able to carry those voices alone, to elevate them where they needed to be heard.
That is where we connected with Grand Challenges Canada and the network of innovators around it.
That was three years ago.
What I am even more excited about now is the opportunity in front of us, and what we have learned about local action so far.
On why the Global Climate Change and Health survey matters – and a double-edged sword
Doris Wangari: You’ve done several surveys. Why should people care about this one? Why should policymakers and funders care?
There is a very significant learning in this survey, a very significant risk we should all consider, and a fascinating opportunity we should not miss.
The learning first.
There were three qualitative questions in the survey.
One was very simple: do you have a lesson learned, a challenge, or a success story you would like to share?
It was optional. People could skip it, because our focus was on barriers and threats.
And yet more than 2,400 respondents chose to take their time, on their own dime, with no compensation offered, to answer it.
We have dug into that data and just published an insights report – what we call a listening and learning report.
What we found is fascinating, but also frightening.
It is a real double-edged sword.
On one side, we found not dozens but hundreds of local solutions and innovations being implemented by local actors, and usually self-funded by the communities themselves.
For example, in response to the increasing frequency of floods, there are women who self-fund the transport to take other women who are about to give birth around the flooding to reach the clinic.
That is just one example.
Because of the scale we were able to reach with Grand Challenges, we now have hundreds of such documented examples.
But here is the other edge.
We all want sustainability.
And what could be more sustainable than local actors who are not asking government for assistance, not asking international donors?
Then, what is our responsibility, and what is our role in response to that?
That brings me to the risk.
This kind of self-organised action can only go so far.
There has to be a match between the resources available and the actions that are actually working on the ground.
We are seeing significant and very necessary investment in improving policy, in building the evidence base, in mapping the landscape of climate change and health.
But if there is no commensurate investment in communities and in local action, we will end up with better policy and better science. And, 5, 10, or 15 years down the line, communities will reject both.
That is the risk I believe we face.
And the opportunity is simply to figure out – maybe to invent – new ways of working together.
There is an amazing group of people in this room who are constantly inventing, so this is the right group to take hold of this message.
For that group of women in the DRC who are self-organising and self-funding a way for pregnant women to give birth safely. What is our role?
What is our responsibility?
What can we do, and how should we do it?
That is the question before us.