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 health performance management in complex systems. Existing health 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, thiscpaper 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 be …

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 Collective Intelligence 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 …

Honoring health professionals as leaders of change

Honoring health professionals as leaders of change

Global health

We honor everyone who is joining the Special Event “From community to planet: Health professionals on the frontlines of climate change”: health staff from immunization and other areas of health – environmental health and One Health, but also those who fight neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), HIV, and other ailments. We also honor allies, including human rights advocates, those working to decolonize global health, fighting for gender and racial equity as well as economic justice. Since 2016, the Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) has supported a global peer learning network and platform, built by and for immunization staff from all over the world. This is because we believe that practitioner-led peer education is a powerful philosophy for change in the Digital Age.  In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic, at least 80 million children under one were placed at risk of vaccine-preventable diseases such as diphtheria, measles and polio as COVID-19 disrupted immunization service as worldwide. …

Learning from Front-line Health Workers in the Climate Change Era

Learning from Frontline Health Workers in the Climate Change Era

Global health, Writing

By Julie Jacobson, Alan Brooks, Charlotte Mbuh, and Reda Sadki The escalating threats of climate change cast long shadows over global health, including increases in disease epidemics, profound impacts on mental health, disruptions to health infrastructure, and alterations in the severity and geographical distribution of diseases. Mitigating the impact of such shadows on communities will test the resilience of health infrastructure in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and especially challenge frontline health workers. The need for effective and cost-efficient public health interventions, such as immunization, will evolve and grow. Health workers, approximately 70% of which are women, that provide immunization and other health services will be trusted local resources to the communities they serve, further amplifying their centrality in resilient health systems. Listening to and building upon the experiences and insights of frontline health workers as they live with and increasingly work to address the manifestations of climate change on …

Interplay between climate and health

What does immunization have to do with climate change?

Global health, Thinking aloud

With climate-driven shifts in disease patterns and emerging health threats, the need for a robust immunization infrastructure is more obvious than ever. As the demand for both existing and novel vaccines rises in response to an expanding disease burden and new health threats, immunization staff will inevitably play a key role. Immunization staff, trusted health advisors to communities, already stand as sometimes-overburdened but always critical actors in resilient health systems. These professionals, entrusted with administering vaccines, contribute to preventing disease outbreaks and maintaining population health. Furthermore, their direct engagement with local communities, their intimate understanding of community health concerns, and their role as trusted advisors position them to recognize and respond to emerging health needs. The role of immunization and other primary health care (PHC) staff as health educators becomes increasingly pertinent in a changing climate. By leveraging their experience in working with communities to understand and accept health interventions, …

Analog gates or digital bridges.png

Digital bridges cannot cross analog gates

Global health, Thinking aloud

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently about an interesting question, as I’ve observed myself and colleagues starting to travel again: “Why are we again funding high-cost, low-volume face-to-face conferences that yield, at best, uncertain outcomes?” I am surprised to have to ask this question. I was hoping for a different outcome, in which the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic led to a lasting change in how we bridge physical and digital spaces for a better future. We were brutally forced to work differently due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s restrictions on freedom of movement. Nevertheless, we discovered that it is possible to connect, meet, collaborate, and learn without sinking budgets into air travel and accommodation. At least some of work-related travel was due to habit and convention, not necessity. Yes, there were limitations, especially due to the emergency nature of the pivot to online. But the debate is open …