Community-based monitoring for immunization

Integrating community-based monitoring (CBM) into a comprehensive learning-to-action model

Reda SadkiGlobal health

According to Gavi, “community-based monitoring” or “CBM” is a process where service users collect data on various aspects of health service provision to monitor program implementation, identify gaps, and collaboratively develop solutions with providers. By engaging service users, CBM aims to foster greater accountability and responsiveness to local needs. The Geneva Learning Foundation’s innovative learning-to-action model offers a compelling framework within which CBM could be applied to immunization challenges. The model’s comprehensive design creates an enabling environment for effectively integrating diverse monitoring data sources – and this could include community perspectives. Health workers as trusted community advisers… and members of the community A distinctive feature of TGLF’s model is its emphasis on health workers’ role as trusted advisors to the communities they serve. The model recognizes that local health staff are not merely service providers, but often deeply embedded community members with intimate knowledge of local realities. For example, in …

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Why health leaders who are critical thinkers choose rote learning for others

Reda SadkiGlobal health

Many health leaders are highly analytical, adaptive learners who thrive on solving complex problems in dynamic, real-world contexts. Their expertise is grounded in years of field experience, where they have honed their ability to rapidly generate insights, test ideas, and innovate solutions in collaboration with diverse stakeholders. In January 2021, as countries were beginning to introduce new COVID-19 vaccines, Kate O’Brien, who leads WHO’s immunization efforts, connected global learning to local action: “For COVID-19 vaccines […] there are just too many lessons that are being learned, especially according to different vaccine platforms, different communities of prioritization that need to be vaccinated. So [everyone]  has got to be able to scale, has got to be able to deal with complexity, has got to be able to do personal, local innovation to actually overcome the challenges.” In an Insights Live session with the Geneva Learning Foundation in 2022, she made a compelling …

77th World Health Assembly Climate and Health Resolution

How will we turn a climate change and health resolution at the World Health Assembly into local action?

Reda SadkiGlobal health

The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) has developed a new model that could help address the urgent challenge of climate change impacts on health by empowering and connecting health workers who serve communities on the receiving end of those impacts. This model leverages TGLF’s track record of facilitating large-scale peer learning networks to generate locally-grounded evidence, elevate community voices, and drive policy change. A key strength of TGLF’s approach is its ability to rapidly connect diverse networks of health workers across geographic and health system boundaries. For example, in March 2020, with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, TGLF worked with a group of 600 of its alumni – primarily government staff working in local communities of Africa, Asia, and Latin America – to develop the Ideas Engine. Within two weeks, the Ideas Engine had connected over 6,000 immunization staff from 90 countries to share strategies for maintaining essential …

Les visage de la vaccination 2023

Semaine mondiale de la vaccination: Que voyez-vous?

Reda SadkiGlobal health, Writing

English version | Version française Ceci est la préface de la nouvelle publication Les visages de la vaccination. En savoir plus… Télécharger la collection… Chaque jour, des milliers d’agents de santé, de l’Afghanistan au Zimbabwe, se lèvent et se rendent au travail avec un seul objectif en tête : faire en sorte que les vaccins parviennent à ceux qui en ont besoin. À l’occasion de la Semaine mondiale de la vaccination du 24 au 30 avril 2023 et du lancement de la campagne « Big Catch Up », la Fondation Apprendre Genève (TGLF) a invité les membres du Mouvement pour la vaccination à l’horizon 2030 (IA2030) à partager des photographies d’eux-mêmes et de leur travail quotidien. Plus de 1 000 témoignages visuels ont été partagés. Il ne s’agit pas de clichés soigneusement composés et techniquement élaborés par des photographes professionnels, mais plutôt d’une vue authentique sur ce que signifie la vaccination dans la pratique. …

The many faces of immunization.10.5281/zenodo.8166653

World Immunization Week: What do you see?

Reda SadkiGlobal health

English version | Version française This is the preface of the new publication The many faces of immunization. Learn more… Download the collection… Every day, thousands of health workers, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, get up and go to work with a single goal in mind ­ to ensure that vaccines reach those who need them. To mark World Immunization Week 2023 (24­–30 April 2023) and the launch of the “Big Catch Up” campaign, the Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) invited members of the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) to share photographs of themselves and their daily work. More than 1,000 visual stories were shared. These are not the carefully composed and technically accomplished shots of the professional photographer: rather, they capture a raw and authentic view of what immunization means in practice. The transport challenges. The concerned and loving mothers. The curious onlookers. The dialogue between practitioners and community members. The …

Gender analysis of the World Health Organization online learning program on Immunization Agenda 2030

Gender analysis of the World Health Organization online learning program on Immunization Agenda 2030

Reda SadkiGlobal health

The article “Gender analysis of the World Health Organization online learning program on Immunization Agenda 2030” is, according to the authors, “the first to showcase the positive inclusion of mainstreaming gender in a WHO capacity-building program.” Context: Key findings: This is consistent with the known effectiveness of peer feedback, as the rubric followed by each learner included specific instructions to “describe how your action plan has considered and integrated gender dimensions in immunization.” TGLF’s peer learning model focuses on generating and applying new knowledge. This appears to be conducive to raising awareness of issues like gender barriers to immunization. By giving and receiving feedback, participants build understanding. Whereas only around ten percent of learners participated in expert-led presentations offered about gender and immunization, every learner had to think through and write up gender analysis. And every learner had to give feedback on the gender analyses of three colleagues. The social …

Movement for Immunization Agenda IA2030

Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030): grounding action in local realities to reach the unreached

Reda SadkiGlobal health

WHO’s 154th Executive Board meeting provided a sobering picture of how the COVID-19 pandemic reversed decades of progress in expanding global immunization coverage and controlling vaccine-preventable diseases. In response, the World Health Organization is calling for action “grounded in local realities”. Growing evidence supports fresh approaches that do exactly that. Tom Newton-Lewis is part of the community of researchers and practitioners who have observed that “health systems are complex and adaptive” and, they say, that explains why top-down control rarely succeeds. However, top-down control and directive management appear to have been key to how immunization programmes achieved impressive results in previous decades. Hence, it may be challenging for the current generation of global immunization leaders to consider that enabling approaches that leverage intrinsic motivation, foster collective responsibility, and empower teams – especially for local staff – are the ones needed now. One example of an enabling approach is the Movement for Immunization …

WHO Director-General says Immunization Agenda 2030 off-track

Widening inequities: Immunization Agenda 2030 remains “off-track”

Reda SadkiGlobal health

The WHO Director General’s report to the 154th session of the Executive Board on progress towards the Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) goals paints a “sobering picture” of uneven global recovery since COVID-19. As of 2022, 3 out of 7 main impact indicators remain “off-track”, including numbers of zero-dose children, future deaths averted through vaccination, and outbreak control targets. Current evidence indicates substantial acceleration is essential in order to shift indicators out of the “off-track” categories over the next 7 years. While some indicators showed recovery from pandemic backsliding, the report makes clear these improvements are generally insufficient to achieve targets set for 2030. While some indicators have improved from 2021, overall performance still “lags 2019 levels” (para 5). Specifically, global coverage of three childhood DTP vaccine doses rose from 81% in 2021 to 84% in 2022, but remains below the 86% rate achieved in 2019 before the pandemic (para 5). …

IA2030 Movement HPV vaccination national EPI consultation

Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030): National EPI leaders from 31 countries share experience of HPV vaccination

Reda SadkiGlobal health

What difference can peer-led learning and action make for national EPI planners seeking new strategies to support HPV vaccine introduction or reintroduction? The stakes are high: HPV vaccination efforts, if successful, will avert 3.4 million deaths by 2030. On Friday, EPI focal points for HPV and other national-level MOH colleagues from 31 countries convened under the banner of the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030), which connects over 60,000 primarily sub-national health staff worldwide. What is the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030)? This time, it was national HPV vaccination focal points and other national EPI planners who joined to share experience between countries of ‘what works’ (and how). They also discussed how the Geneva Learning Foundation’s unique peer learning-to-action pathway could help them overcome barriers they are facing to ensure that local communities understand and support the benefits of this vaccine. Such a pathway can complement existing, top-down forms …

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What did we learn from the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) in its first two years?

Reda SadkiGlobal 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 …