When funding shrinks, impact must grow the economic case for peer learning networks-small

When funding shrinks, impact must grow: the economic case for peer learning networks

Reda SadkiGlobal health, The Geneva Learning Foundation

Humanitarian, global health, and development organizations confront an unprecedented crisis. Donor funding is in a downward spiral, while needs intensify across every sector. Organizations face stark choices: reduce programs, cut staff, or fundamentally transform how they deliver results. Traditional capacity building models have become economically unsustainable. Technical assistance, expert-led workshops, international travel, and venue-based training are examples of high-cost, low-volume activities that organizations can no longer afford. Yet the need for learning, coordination, and adaptive capacity has never been greater. The opportunity cost of inaction Organizations that fail to adapt face systematic disadvantage. Traditional approaches cannot survive current funding constraints while maintaining effectiveness. Meanwhile, global challenges intensify: climate change drives new disease patterns; conflict disrupts health systems; demographic transitions strain capacity. These complex, interconnected challenges require adaptive systems that respond at the speed and scale of emerging threats. Organizations continuing expensive, ineffective approaches will face programmatic obsolescence. Working with governments …

PanoramAI Reda Sadki artificial intelligence

The business of artificial intelligence and the equity challenge

Reda SadkiArtificial intelligence, The Geneva Learning Foundation

Since 2019, when The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) launched its first AI pilot project, we have been exploring how the Second Machine Age is reshaping learning. Ahead of the release of the first framework for AI in global health, I had a chance to sit down with a group of Swiss business leaders at the PanoramAI conference in Lausanne on 5 June 2025 to share TGLF’s insights about the significance and potential of artificial intelligence for global health and humanitarian response. Here is the article posted by the conference to recap a few of the take-aways. The Global Equity Challenger At the Panoramai AI Summit, Reda Sadki, leader of The Geneva Learning Foundation, delivered provocative insights about AI’s impact on global equity and the future of human work. Drawing from humanitarian emergency response and global health networks, he challenged comfortable assumptions about AI’s societal implications. The job displacement reality Reda …

More with less

Global health: learning to do more with less

Reda SadkiGlobal health

In a climate of funding uncertainty, what if the most cost-effective investments in global health weren’t about supplies or infrastructure, but human networks that turn learning into action? In this short review article, we explore how peer learning networks that connect human beings to learn from and support each other can transform health outcomes with minimal resources. The common thread uniting the different themes below reveals a powerful principle for our resource-constrained era: structured peer learning networks consistently deliver outsized impact relative to their cost. Whether connecting health workers battling vaccine hesitancy in rural communities, maintaining essential immunization services during a global pandemic, supporting practitioners helping traumatized Ukrainian children, integrating AI tools ethically, or amplifying women’s voices from the frontlines – each case demonstrates how connecting practitioners across geographical and hierarchical boundaries transforms individual knowledge into collective action. When health systems face funding shortfalls, these examples suggest that investing in …

New ways to learn and lead HPV vaccination

AI podcast explores surprising insights from health workers about HPV vaccination

Reda SadkiGlobal health

This is an AI podcast featuring two hosts discussing an article by Reda Sadki titled “New Ways to Learn and Lead HPV Vaccination: Bridging Planning and Implementation Gaps.” The conversational format involves the AI hosts taking turns explaining key points and sharing insights about Sadki’s work on HPV vaccination strategies. While the conversation is AI-generated, everything is based on the published article and insights from the experiences of thousands of health workers participating in Teach to Reach. The Geneva Learning Foundation’s approach Throughout the podcast, the hosts explore how the Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) has developed a five-step process to improve HPV vaccination implementation through their “Teach to Reach” program. This process involves: The hosts emphasize that this approach represents a shift from traditional top-down strategies to one that values the collective intelligence of over 16,000 global health workers who implement these programs. Surprising findings The AI hosts discuss several …

An AI-generated podcast dialogue exploring The Geneva Learning Foundation’s progress in 2024

A generative AI podcast dialogue exploring The Geneva Learning Foundation’s progress in 2024

Reda SadkiGlobal health

This experimental podcast, created in collaboration with generative AI, demonstrates a novel approach to exploring complex learning concepts through a conversational framework that is intended to support dialogic learning. Based on TGLF’s 2024 end-of-year message and supplementary materials, the conversation examines their peer learning model through a combination of concrete examples and theoretical reflection. The dialogue format enables exploration of how knowledge emerges through structured interaction, even in AI-generated content. Experimental nature and limitations of generative AI for dialogic learning This content is being shared as an exploration of how generative AI might contribute to learning and knowledge construction. While based on TGLF’s actual 2024 message, the dialogue includes AI-generated elaborations that may contain inaccuracies. However, these limitations themselves provide interesting insights into how knowledge emerges through interaction, even in artificial contexts. You can read our actual 2024 Year in review message here. Pedagogical value and theoretical implications of a …

The cost of inaction Quantifying the impact of climate change on health

The cost of inaction: Quantifying the impact of climate change on health

Reda SadkiGlobal health

This World Bank report ‘The Cost of Inaction: Quantifying the Impact of Climate Change on Health in Low- and Middle-Income Countries’ presents new analysis of climate change impacts on health systems and outcomes in the regions that are bearing the brunt of these impacts. Key analytical insights to quantify climate change impacts on health The report makes three contributions to our understanding of climate-health interactions: First, it quantifies the massive scale of climate change impacts on health, projecting 4.1-5.2 billion climate-related disease cases and 14.5-15.6 million deaths in LMICs by 2050. This represents a significant advancement over previous estimates, which the report demonstrates were substantial underestimates. Second, it illuminates the profound economic consequences, calculating costs of $8.6-20.8 trillion by 2050 (0.7-1.3% of LMIC GDP). The report employs both Value of Statistical Life and Years of Life Lost approaches to provide a range of economic impact estimates. Third, it reveals stark …

Why answer Teach to Reach Questions-small

Why answer Teach to Reach Questions?

Reda SadkiGlobal health

Have you ever wished you could talk to another health worker who has faced the same challenges as you? Someone who found a way to keep helping people, even when things seemed impossible? That’s exactly the kind of active learning that Teach to Reach Questions make possible. They make peer learning easy for everyone who works for health. What are Teach to Reach Questions? Once you join Teach to Reach (what is it?), you’ll receive questions about real-world challenges that matter to health professionals. How does it work? What’s different about these questions? Unlike typical surveys that just collect data, Teach to Reach Questions are active learning that: See what we give back to the community. Get the English-language collection of Experiences shared from Teach to Reach 10. The new compendium includes over 600 health worker experiences about immunisation, climate change, malaria, NTDs, and digital health. A second collection of …

ASTMH 2024 How can we reliably spread evidence-based practices at the speed and scale modern health challenges demand

How can we reliably spread evidence-based practices at the speed and scale modern health challenges demand?

Reda SadkiGlobal health

At a symposium of the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) Annual Meeting, I explored how peer learning could help us tackle five critical challenges that limit effectiveness in global health. For epidemiologists working on implementation science, peer learning provides a new path for solving one of global health’s most persistent challenges: how to reliably spread evidence-based practices at the speed and scale modern health challenges demand. The evidence suggests we should view peer learning not just as a training approach, but as a mechanism for viral spread of effective practices through health systems. How do we get to attribution? Of course, an epidemiologist will want to know if and how improved health outcomes can be attributed to peer learning interventions. The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) addresses this fundamental challenge in implementation science – proving attribution – through a three-stage process that combines quantitative indicators with qualitative validation. …

Teach to Reach network of organizational leaders

Teach to Reach’s new leadership network connects health organizations tackling common challenges

Reda SadkiGlobal health

The Geneva Learning Foundation is launching REACH (Relate, Engage, Act, Connect, Help), a new leadership network to connect local, national, and international leaders of health organizations who are solving similar problems in different countries. Launching November 6, 2024 REACH responds to an unexpected outcome of Teach to Reach, a peer learning platform that–in less than four years–has already documented over 10,000 local solutions and experiences to health challenges by connecting more than 60,000 participants across 77 countries. When organizations began formally participating in Teach to Reach in June 2024, many leaders discovered they were tackling similar challenges. A digital immunization tracking system in Rwanda sparked interest from several African countries. A community engagement approach to vaccine hesitancy in Nigeria resonated with teams in Kenya and Zimbabwe. These spontaneous connections led to the creation of REACH. What is Teach to Reach? “Teach to Reach is a place where you learn in …

Meeting of The Geneva Learning Foundation's Scholars and Alumni of Ghana

Making connections: Ghana’s Alumni of The Geneva Learning Foundation meet in Accra

Reda SadkiGlobal health

The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) will host its first physical-world meeting of Ghana Scholars and Alumni on Wednesday, October 30, 2024 in Accra. Seventy-two health professionals from across Ghana’s health system will participate in the evening event. The participants include staff from the Ghana Health Service, teaching hospitals, district health directorates, and non-governmental organizations. They represent all levels of the health system, with 8 working at the national level, 8 at regional facilities, 39 in district health services, and 13 in community-based programs. “This is a great opportunity for all health workers for impact,” says one participant, reflecting the anticipation among attendees. These professionals are alumni of TGLF’s programs, including the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) and Teach to Reach initiatives, which focus on transforming global health strategies into practical, locally-adapted solutions. “TGLF’s learning platforms give us great information and knowledge that are feasible and can be applied in …