Health at COP29

Health at COP29: Workforce crisis meets climate crisis

Global health

Health workers are already being transformed by climate change. COP29 stakeholders can either support this transformation to strengthen health systems, or risk watching the health workforce collapse under mounting pressures. The World Health Organization’s “COP29 Special Report on Climate Change and Health: Health is the Argument for Climate Action“ highlights the health sector’s role in climate action. Health professionals are eyewitnesses and first responders to climate impacts on people and communities firsthand – from escalating respiratory diseases to spreading infections and increasing humanitarian disasters. The report positions health workers as “trusted members of society” who are “uniquely positioned” to champion climate action. The context is stark: WHO projects a global shortage of 10 million health workers by 2030, with six million in climate-vulnerable sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, our communities and healthcare systems already bear the costs of climate change through increasing disease burdens and system strain. Health workers are responding, because …

How Teach to Reach can help your organization

Can Teach to Reach help your organization?

Global health

Teach to Reach stands as a unique nexus in the global health landscape, offering unprecedented opportunities for diverse stakeholders to engage, learn, and drive meaningful change. With over 60,000 participants from more than 90 countries, this platform, network, and community bring together a mix of frontline health workers, policymakers, and key decision-makers. At Teach to Reach, research institutions and academic researchers engage health workers to translate their findings into policy and practice For research institutions and academic partners, Teach to Reach provides a site for knowledge translation. It provides direct access to practitioners and policymakers at all levels, enabling researchers to share findings with those best positioned to apply them in real-world settings. The platform’s interactive features, such as “Teach to Reach Questions,” allow for rapid data collection and feedback, helping bridge the gap between research and practice. At Teach to Reach, global agencies can listen and learn with local …

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?

Global health

This video was prepared by the World Health Organization with voices of health workers speaking at the Special Event “From community to planet” hosted by The Geneva Learning Foundation. 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 …

Climate change and health-Health workers on climate, community, and the urgent need for action

Climate change and health: Health workers on climate, community, and the urgent need for action

Global health

As world leaders gathered for the COP28 climate conference, the Geneva Learning Foundation called for the insights of health workers on the frontlines of climate and health to be heard amidst the global dialogue. Ahead of Teach to Reach 10, a new eyewitness report analyses 219 new insights shared by 122 health professionals – primarily those working in local communities across Africa, Asia and Latin America – to two critical questions: How is climate change affecting the health of the communities you serve right now? And what actions must world leaders take to help you protect the people in your care? (Teach to Reach is a regular peer learning event. The tenth edition on 20-21 June 2024 is expected to gather over 20,000 community-based health workers to share experience of climate change impacts on health. Request your invitation here.) Their answers paint a picture of the accelerating health crisis unfolding in the world’s most climate-vulnerable …