What is the Impact Accelerator

What is The Geneva Learning Foundation’s Impact Accelerator?

Reda SadkiGlobal health

Imagine a social worker in Ukraine supporting children affected by the humanitarian crisis. Thousands of kilometers away, a radiation specialist in Japan is trying to find effective ways to communicate with local communities. In Nigeria, a health worker is tackling how to increase immunization coverage in their remote village. These professionals face very different challenges in very different places. Yet when they joined their first “Impact Accelerator”, something remarkable happened. They all found a way forward. They all made real progress. They all discovered they are not alone. The Impact Accelerator is a simple, practical method developed by The Geneva Learning Foundation that helps professionals turn intent into action, results, and outcomes. It has worked equally well in every country where it has been tried. It has helped people – whatever their knowledge domain or context – strengthen action and accelerate progress to improve health outcomes. Each time, in each …

20250717.PFA Accelerator article

PFA Accelerator: across Europe, practitioners learn from each other to strengthen support to children affected by the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine

Reda SadkiGlobal health

In the PFA Accelerator, practitioners supporting children are teaching each other what works. Every Friday, more than 240 education, social work, and health professionals across Ukraine and Europe file reports on the same question: What happened when you tried to help a child this week? Their answers – grounded in their daily work – are creating new insights into how Psychological First Aid (“PFA”) works in active conflict zones, displacement centers, and communities hosting Ukrainian families. These practitioners implement practical actions with children each week, then share what they learn with colleagues from all over Europe who face similar challenges. The tracking reveals stark patterns. More than half work with children showing anxiety, fear, and stress responses triggered by air raids, family separation, or displacement. Another 42% focus on children struggling to connect with others in unfamiliar places—Ukrainian teenagers isolated in Polish schools, families in Croatian refugee centers, children moved …

Why peer learning is critical to survive the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Why peer learning is critical to survive the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Reda SadkiArtificial intelligence, Global health

María, a pediatrician in Argentina, works with an AI diagnostic system that can identify rare diseases, suggest treatment protocols, and draft reports in perfect medical Spanish. But something crucial is missing. The AI provides brilliant medical insights, yet María struggles to translate them into action in her community. What is needed to realize the promise of the Age of Artificial Intelligence? Then she discovers the missing piece. Through a peer learning network—where health workers develop projects addressing real challenges, review each other’s work, and engage in facilitated dialogue—she connects with other health professionals across Latin America who are learning to work with AI as a collaborative partner. Together, they discover that AI becomes far more useful when combined with their understanding of local contexts, cultural practices, and community dynamics. This speculative scenario, based on current AI developments and existing peer learning successes, illuminates a crucial insight as we ascend into …

The funding crisis solution hiding in plain sight

The funding crisis solution hiding in plain sight

Reda SadkiGlobal health

“I did not realize how much I could do with what we already have.” A Nigerian health worker’s revelation captures what may be the most significant breakthrough in global health implementation during the current funding crisis. While organizations worldwide slash programs and lay off staff, a small Swiss non-profit, The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF), is demonstrating how to achieve seven times greater likelihood of improved health outcomes while cutting costs by 90 percent. The secret lies not in new technology or additional resources, but in something deceptively simple: health workers learning from and supporting each other. Nigeria: Two weeks to connect thousands, four weeks to change, and six weeks to outcomes On June 26, 2025, representatives from 153 global health and humanitarian organizations gathered for a closed-door briefing seeking proven solutions to implementation challenges they knew all too well. TGLF presented evidence from the Nigeria Immunization Agenda 2030 Collaborative that sounds almost …

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 may no longer be able to 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. …

Equity matters: A practical approach to identify and eliminate biases

Patterns of prejudice: Connecting the dots helps health workers combat bias worldwide

Reda SadkiGlobal health

English | Français “I noticed that every time he went to appointments or emergency services, he was often met with suspicion or treated as if he was exaggerating his symptoms,” shared a community support worker from Canada, describing how an Indigenous teenager waited three months for mental health services while non-Indigenous youth were seen within weeks. This testimony was just one of hundreds shared during an unusual global gathering where frontline health workers confronted an uncomfortable truth: healthcare systems worldwide are riddled with biases that determine who lives and who dies. “Equity Matters: A Practical Approach to Identify and Eliminate Biases,” a special event hosted by the Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) on 10-11 April 2025, drew nearly 5,000 health professionals from 72 countries. What made the event distinctive wasn’t just its scope, but its approach: creating a forum where community health workers from rural Nigeria could share insights alongside WHO …

L’équité, ça compte: Une approche pratique pour identifier et éliminer les biais

L’équité compte: quand les soignants du monde entier témoignent des inégalités en santé

Reda SadkiGlobal health

English | Français GENÈVE, le 11 avril 2025 – Une initiative internationale inédite a rassemblé près de 5000 professionnels de santé pour partager leurs expériences face aux discriminations dans l’accès aux soins « Un enfant est mort parce que sa famille ne pouvait pas déposer 500 000 nairas [environ 300 francs suisses] avant le début des soins. Le père avait pourtant supplié qu’on s’occupe de l’enfant, proposant 100 000 nairas et promettant de vendre son bétail pour payer le reste. » Ce récit glaçant d’un professionnel de santé nigérian illustre la dure réalité des inégalités d’accès aux soins dont de nombreux témoignages ont été partagés lors d’un événement international consacré à l’équité en santé. Le 11 avril dernier, la Fondation Apprendre Genève a créé un espace de dialogue sans précédent, rassemblant près de 5 000 professionnels de la santé de 72 pays, dont 1 830 francophones. Intitulé « L’équité compte: …

Peer learning through Psychological First Aid: New ways to strengthen support for Ukrainian children

Peer learning for Psychological First Aid: New ways to strengthen support for Ukrainian children

Reda SadkiWriting

This article is based on Reda Sadki’s presentation at the ChildHub “Webinar on Psychological First Aid for Children; Supporting the Most Vulnerable” on 6 March 2025. Learn more about the Certificate peer learning programme on Psychological First Aid (PFA) in support of children affected by the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine. Get insights from professionals who support Ukrainian children. “I understood that if we want to cry, we can cry,” reflected a practitioner in the Certificate peer learning programme on Psychological First Aid (PFA) in support of children affected by the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine – illustrating the kind of personal transformation that complements technical training. During the ChildHub “Webinar on Psychological First Aid for Children; Supporting the Most Vulnerable”, the Geneva Learning Foundation’s Reda Sadki explained how peer learning provides value that traditional training alone cannot deliver. The EU-funded program on Psychological First Aid (PFA) for children demonstrates that practitioners …

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 …

New ways to learn and lead HPV vaccination Bridging planning and implementation gaps

HPV vaccination: New learning and leadership to bridge the gap between planning and implementation

Reda SadkiGlobal health

This article is based on my presentation about HPV vaccination at the 2nd National Conference on Adult Immunization and Allied Medicine of the Indian Society for Adult Immunization (ISAI), Science City, Kolkata, on 15 February 2025. The HPV vaccination implementation challenge The global landscape of HPV vaccination and cervical cancer prevention reveals a mix of progress and persistent challenges. While 144 countries have introduced HPV vaccines nationally and vaccination has shown remarkable efficacy in reducing cervical cancer incidence, significant disparities persist, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Evidence suggests that challenges in implementing and sustaining HPV vaccination programs in developing countries are significantly influenced by gaps between planning at national level and execution at local levels. Multiple studies confirm this disconnect as a primary barrier to effective HPV vaccination programmes. Traditional approaches to knowledge development in global health often rely on expert committee models characterized by hierarchical knowledge flows, formal …