Thematic areas
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Learning, leadership, and impact in the Digital Age: In dialogue with Karen Watkins
Listen in on the Foundation’s first invitation-only Clubhouse chat. Karen Watkins and I chatted about the Foundation’s unique approach to this triptych of learning, leadership, and impact in the Digital Age. We shared some of the insights we gained about resilience during the first year of COVID-19, learning from the Foundation’s immunization programme that connected…
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Disseminating rapid learning about COVID-19 vaccine introduction
In July 2019, barely six months before the pandemic, we worked with alumni of The Geneva Learning Foundation’s immunization programme to build the Impact Accelerator in 86 countries. This global community of action for national and sub-national immunization staff pledged, following completion of one of the Foundation’s courses, to support each other in other to…
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Solidarity across public health and medicine silos during a pandemic
We are launching a new Scholar programme about environmental threats to health, with an initial focus on radiation. (I mapped out what this might look like in 2017.) As part of the launch, we are enlisting support of immunization colleagues. Our immunization programme is our largest and most advanced programme, and still growing fast since…
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When learning meets emergency: The Geneva Learning Foundation’s approach to crisis response
This article is based on Zapnito CEO Charles Thiede’s interview of Reda Sadki on 16 September 2019. “I knew we had hit gold when a young doctor in Ghana was able to turn what he learned into action – and get results that improved the health outcome prospects of every pregnant woman in his district –…
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Digital health: The Geneva Learning Foundation to bring AI-driven training to health workers in 90 countries
GENEVA, 23 April 2019 – The Geneva Learning Foundation (GLF) is partnering with artificial intelligence (AI) learning pioneer Wildfire to pilot cutting edge learning technology with over 1,000 immunization professionals in 90 countries, many working at the district level. British startup Wildfire, an award-winning innovator, is helping the Swiss non-profit tackle a wicked problem: while…
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Why learning professionals should strive to be leaders, not just service providers
The learning landscape is changing fast. Even the most jurassic face-to-face trainers I know are now embracing the digital transformation or at least trying to. Ephemeral fads such as the Social Age or gamification are proliferating alongside newer, more sustainable and productive approaches that match the learning contexts of humanitarians and support the development of…
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What is the difference between a wicked problem and a grand challenge?
The management concepts of wicked problems and grand challenges are closely related but have some key distinctions: Similarities Both wicked problems and grand challenges refer to complex, systemic issues that are difficult to solve and have far-reaching societal impacts. They share several characteristics: Distinctions While closely related, there are some nuanced differences: Scope and framing…
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Implementation of guidelines, officially
This is everything that the World Health Organization’s Handbook for Guideline Development says about implementation. Implementation of a guideline should be taken into account right from the beginning of the guideline development. Implementation is generally the responsibility of national or subnational groups, which explains why their participation in guideline development is critical. WHO headquarters and regional…
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From guidelines to impact
Most global public health organizations issue guidelines that are of a high methodological quality and are developed through a transparent, evidence-based decision-making process. However, they often lack an effective, scalable mechanism to support governments and health workers at country and sub-country level in turning these into action that leads to impact. Existing activities intended to…
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New learning and leadership for front-line community health workers facing danger
This presentation was prepared for the second global meeting of the Health Care in Danger (HCiD) project in Geneva, Switzerland (17–18 May 2017). In October 2016, over 700 pre-hospital emergency workers from 70 countries signed up for the #Ambulance! initiative to “share experience and document situations of violence”. This initiative was led by Norwegian Red…
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