Teach to Reach 11 Call for Partners

Why participate in Teach to Reach?

Reda SadkiGlobal health

In global health, where challenges are as diverse as they are complex, we need new ways for health professionals to connect, learn, and drive change. Imagine a digital space where a nurse from rural Nigeria, a policymaker from India, and a WHO expert can share experiences, learn from each other, and collectively tackle global health challenges. That’s the essence of Teach to Reach. Welcome to Teach to Reach, a peer learning initiative launched in January 2021 by a collection of over 300 health professionals from Africa, Asia, and Latin America as they were getting ready to introduce COVID-19 vaccination. Four years later, the tenth edition of Teach to Reach on 20-21 June 2024 brought together an astounding 21,389 health professionals from over 70 countries. Discussion has expanded beyond immunization to include a range of challenges that matter for the survival and resilience of local communities. What makes this gathering extraordinary …

Brevity’s burden The executive summary trap in global health

Brevity’s burden: The executive summary trap in global health

Reda SadkiGlobal health, Learning strategy

It was James Gleick who noted in his book “Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything” the societal shift towards valuing speed over depth: “We have become a quick-reflexed, multitasking, channel-flipping, fast-forwarding species. We don’t completely understand it, and we’re not altogether happy about it.” In global health, there’s a growing tendency to demand ever-shorter summaries of complex information. “Can you condense this into four pages?” “Is there an executive summary?” These requests, while stemming from real time constraints, reveal fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of knowledge and learning. Worse, they contribute to perpetuating existing global health inequities. Here is why – and a few ideas of what we can do about it. We lose more than time in the race to brevity The push for shortened summaries is understandable on the surface. Some clinical researchers, for example, undeniably face increasing time pressures. Many are swamped due to underlying structural issues, …

The Nigeria Immunization Collaborative what happened after just two weeks

The Nigeria Immunization Collaborative: what happened after just two weeks?

Reda SadkiGlobal health

Less than three weeks after its launch, the Nigeria Immunization Collaborative – a partnership between the Geneva Learning Foundation, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), and UNICEF – has already connected over 4,000 participants from all 36 states and more than 300 Local Government Areas (LGAs). The Collaborative is part of the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030). In the Collaborative’s first peer learning exercise that concluded on 6 August 2024, over 600 participants conducted root cause analyses of immunization barriers in their communities. Participants engaged in a two-week intensive process of analyzing immunization challenges, conducting root cause analyses, and developing actionable plans to address these issues. They did this without having to stop their daily work or travel, a key characteristic of The Geneva Learning Foundation’s model to support work-based learning. Watch the General Assembly of the Nigeria Immunization Collaborative on 6 August 2024 What are health workers …

Experience-sharing sessions in the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030- A novel approach to localize global health collaboration

Experience-sharing sessions in the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030: A novel approach to localize global health collaboration

Reda SadkiGlobal health

As immunization programs worldwide struggle to recover from pandemic disruptions, the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) offers a novel, practitioner-led approach to accelerate progress towards global vaccination goals. From March to June 2022, the Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) conducted the first Full Learning Cycle (FLC) of the Movement for IA2030, engaging 6,185 health professionals from low- and middle-income countries. A cornerstone of this programme was a series of 44 experience-sharing sessions held between 7 March and 13 June 2022. These sessions brought together between 20 and 400 practitioners per session to discuss and solve real-world immunization challenges. IA2030 case study 16, by Charlotte Mbuh and François Gasse, offers valuable insights from these experience-sharing session: Download the full case study: IA2030 Case study 16. Continuum from knowledge to performance. The Geneva Learning Foundation. For every challenge shared during the experience sharing sessions, there was always at least one member who …

Learn health, but beware of the behaviorist trap

Reda SadkiGlobal health, Theory

The global health community has long grappled with the challenge of providing effective, scalable training to health workers, particularly in resource-constrained settings. In recent years, digital learning platforms have emerged as a potential solution, promising to deliver accessible, engaging, and impactful training at scale. Imagine a digital platform intended to train health workers at scale. Their theory of change rests on a few key assumptions: On the surface, this seems sensible. Mobile optimization recognizes health workers’ technological realities. Multimedia content seems more engaging than pure text. Assessments appear to verify learning. Incentives promise to drive uptake. Scale feels synonymous with success. While well-intentioned, such a platform risks falling into the trap of a behaviorist learning agenda. This is an approach that, despite its prevalence, is a pedagogical dead-end with limited potential for driving meaningful, sustained improvements in health worker performance and health outcomes. It is a paradigm that views learners …

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

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 …

Petra Klepac Climate change, malaria and neglected tropical diseases-a scoping review

Klepac and colleagues‘ scoping review of climate change, malaria and neglected tropical diseases: what about the epistemic significance of health worker knowledge?

Reda SadkiGlobal health

By Luchuo E. Bain and Reda Sadki The scoping review by Klepac et al. provides a comprehensive overview of codified academic knowledge about the complex interplay between climate change and a wide range of infectious diseases, including malaria and 20 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). The review synthesized findings from 511 papers published between 2010 and 2023, revealing that the vast majority of studies focused on malaria, dengue, chikungunya, and leishmaniasis, while other NTDs were relatively understudied. The geographical distribution of studies also varied, with malaria studies concentrated in Africa, Brazil, China, and India, and dengue and chikungunya studies more prevalent in Australia, China, India, Europe, and the USA. One of the most striking findings of the review is the potential for climate change to have profound and varied effects on the distribution and transmission of malaria and NTDs, with impacts likely to vary by disease, location, and time. However, the …

Examples of double-loop learning in global health

Five examples of double-loop learning in global health

Reda SadkiWriting

Read this first: What is double-loop learning in global health? Example 1: Addressing low uptake of a vaccine program Single–Loop Learning: Improve logistics and supply chain management to ensure consistent vaccine availability at clinics. Double–Loop Learning: Engage with community leaders to understand cultural beliefs and concerns around vaccination, and co-design a more localized and trustworthy immunization strategy. What is the difference? Double-loop learning questions the assumption that the primary goal should be to increase uptake at all costs. It considers whether the program design respects community autonomy and addresses their real concerns. It may surface competing values of public health impact vs. community self-determination. Example 2: Responding to an infectious disease outbreak Single–Loop Learning: Rapidly mobilize health workers and supplies to affected areas to contain the outbreak following established emergency protocols. Double–Loop Learning: Critically examine why the health system was vulnerable to this outbreak, and work with communities to redesign …

Why learning culture is the missing link between learning and performance in global health

Learning culture: the missing link in global health between learning and performance

Reda SadkiGlobal health

Read this first: What is double-loop learning in global health? Learning culture is a critical concept missing from health systems research. It provides a practical and actionable framework to operationalize the notion of ‘learning health systems’ and drive transformative change. Watkins and Marsick describe learning culture as the capacity for change. They identify seven key action imperatives or “essential building blocks” that strengthen it: continuous learning opportunities, inquiry and dialogue, collaboration and team learning, systems to capture and share learning, people empowerment, connection to the environment, and strategic leadership for learning (Watkins & O’Neil, 2013). Crucially, the instrument developed by Watkins and Marsick assesses learning culture by examining perceptions of norms and practices, not just individual behaviors (Watkins & O’Neil, 2013). This aligns with Seye Abimbola’s assertion that learning in health systems should be “people-centred” and occurs at multiple interconnected levels. Furthermore, this research demonstrates that certain dimensions of learning …

What is double loop learning in global health

What is double-loop learning in global health?

Reda SadkiGlobal health

Argyris (1976) defines double-loop learning as occurring “when errors are corrected by changing the governing values and then the actions.” He contrasts this with single-loop learning, where “errors are corrected without altering the underlying governing values.” This is challenging because it can threaten one’s sense of competence and self-image. ‘Are we doing things right?’ vs. ‘Are we doing the right things?’ In global health, double-loop learning means not just asking “Are we doing things right?” but also “Are we doing the right things?” It means being willing to challenge long-held assumptions about what works, for whom, and under what conditions. Epistemological assumptions (“we already know the best way”), methodological orthodoxies (“this is not how we do things”), and apolitical stance (“I do health, not politics”) of epidemiology can predispose practitioners to be dismissive of a concept like double-loop learning.  Learn more: Five examples of double-loop learning in global health Seye …