IWD2024 Women inspiring women

Women’s voices from the frontlines of health and humanitarian action

Reda SadkiGlobal health

English version | Version française GENEVA, Switzerland, 8 March 2024 – The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) is sharing a collection of stories titled “Women inspiring women”, shared by 177 women on the frontlines of health and humanitarian action. Download: The Geneva Learning Foundation. (2024). Women inspiring women: International Women’s Day 2024 (1.0). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10783218 The collection is a vibrant tapestry of women’s voices from the frontlines of health and humanitarian action, woven together to showcase the resilience, passion, and leadership of women who are making a difference in the face of war, disease, and climate change. TGLF reached out to women in its global network of more than 60,000 health workers, inviting them to share their heartfelt advice and vision for the future with young women and girls. Health workers in this network, men and women, are on the frontlines of adversity: they work in remote rural areas or with the urban poor. Many …

Des femmes pour la santé

Voix de femmes en première ligne de la santé et de l’action humanitaire

Reda SadkiGlobal health

English version | Version française GENÈVE, Suisse, le 8 mars 2024 — La Fondation Apprendre Genève (TGLF) partage une collection de récits intitulée « Des femmes pour la santé », partagées par 177 femmes en première ligne de la santé et de l’action humanitaire. Télécharger la collection: La Fondation Apprendre Genève (2024).  Des femmes pour la santé : Journée internationale de la femme 2024 (1.0). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10792027 La collection réunit des voix de femmes provenant des premières lignes de la santé et de l’action humanitaire. Ensemble, elles mettent en valeur la résilience, la passion et le leadership des femmes qui font la différence face à la guerre, à la maladie et au changement climatique. La Fondation a lancé l’appel aux femmes de son réseau international de plus de 60 000 professionnels de la santé, les invitant à partager avec les jeunes femmes et les filles leurs conseils sincères et leur vision de l’avenir. Les membres de ce …

Protect Invest Together

Protect, invest, together: strengthening health workforce through new learning models

Reda SadkiGlobal health

In “Prioritising the health and care workforce shortage: protect, invest, together,” Agyeman-Manu et al. assert that the COVID-19 pandemic aggravated longstanding health workforce deficiencies globally, especially in under-resourced nations.  With projected shortages of 10 million health workers concentrated in Africa and the Middle East by 2030, the authors urgently call for policymakers to commit to retaining and expanding national health workforces.  They propose common-sense solutions: increased, coordinated financing and collaboration across government agencies managing health, finance, economic development, education and labor portfolios. But how can such interconnected, long-term investments be designed for maximum sustainable impact? And what is the role of education? Rethinking health worker learning In a 2021 WHO survey across 159 countries, most health workers reported lacking adequate training to respond effectively to pandemic demands. This exposed systemic weaknesses in how health workforces develop skills at scale. Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, limitations of traditional learning approaches were …

Prioritizing the health and care workforce shortage

Prioritizing the health and care workforce shortage: protect, invest, together

Reda SadkiGlobal health

The severe global shortage of health and care workers poses a dangerous threat to health systems, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The authors of the article “Prioritising the health and care workforce shortage: protect, invest, together”, including six health ministers and the WHO Director-General, assert that this workforce crisis requires urgent action and propose “protect, invest, together” to tackle it. Deep protection of the existing workforce, they assert, is needed through improved working conditions, fair compensation, upholding rights, addressing discrimination and violence, closing gender inequities, and implementing the WHO Global Health and Care Worker Compact to ensure dignified working environments. All countries must prioritize retaining workers to build resilient health systems. Significantly increased and strategic long-term investments are imperative in both training new health workers through educational channels and sustaining their employment. Countries should designate workforce development, especially at the primary care level, as crucial human capital investments …

20231211.COP28 Health Pavilion event

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

Reda SadkiEvents, 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 …

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 

Reda SadkiEvents, 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 …

Health performance management in complex adaptive systems

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

Reda SadkiGlobal 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 …