Gender in emergencies

Gender in emergencies: a new peer learning programme from The Geneva Learning Foundation

Reda SadkiGlobal health, Leadership

This is a critical moment for work on gender in emergencies. Across the humanitarian sector, we are witnessing a coordinated backlash. Decades of progress are threatened by targeted funding cuts, the erasure of essential research and tools, and a political climate that seeks to silence our work. Many dedicated practitioners feel isolated and that their work is being devalued. This is not a time for silence. It is a time for solidarity and for finding resilient ways to sustain our practice. In this spirit, The Geneva Learning Foundation is pleased to announce the new Certificate peer learning programme for gender in emergencies. We offer this programme to build upon the decades of vital work by countless practitioners and activists, seeing our role as one of contribution to the collective effort of all who continue to champion gender equality in emergencies. Learn more and request your invitation to the programme and its first …

How practitioners in Ukraine and across Europe built a self-sustaining peer learning network to support children

How practitioners in Ukraine and across Europe built a self-sustaining peer learning network to support children

Reda SadkiGlobal health

When military fathers started arriving at her centre in Bulgaria, sharing challenges they faced with their own children, Irina V. found herself drawing on lessons learned not from textbooks, but from conversations with fellow practitioners scattered across a war zone. “What I learned about providing psychological first aid (PFA) to children actually helped me in working with parents of children in crisis,” Irina explained during a recent video call with professionals across Europe supporting children affected by the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine. That call was the first annual meeting of an entirely volunteer-driven network of practitioners – some working within kilometres of active combat – who teach each other how to better support children. This network emerged from an innovative certificate peer learning programme supported by the European Union’s EU4Health programme, developed by The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). …

Certificate peer learning programme for equity in research and practice

From diagnosis to duty: health workers confront their own role in inequity

Reda SadkiGlobal health

A thirteen-year-old girl in Nigeria, bitten by a snake, arrived at a hospital with her frantic family. The hospital demanded payment before administering the antivenom. The family could not afford it. The girl died. This was one of the stark stories shared by health professionals on September 10, 2025, during “Exploration Day,” the third day of The Geneva Learning Foundation’s inaugural peer learning exercise on health equity. The previous day had been about diagnosing the external systems that create such tragedies. But today, the focus shifted. “Yesterday, we looked at the problem,” said TGLF facilitator Dr María Fernanda Monzón. “Today, we look in the mirror. We move from analyzing the situation to analyzing ourselves, our own role, our own power, and our own assumptions”. The practitioner’s role The day’s intensive, small-group workshops challenged participants to move beyond naming a problem to questioning their own connection to it. Groups brought their …

Certificate peer learning programme for equity in research and practice

The practitioner as catalyst: How a global learning community is turning frontline experience into action on health inequity

Reda SadkiGlobal health

“In this phase of my life, I want to work directly with the communities to see what I can do,” said Dr. Sambo Godwin Ishaku, a public health leader from Nigeria with over two decades of experience. His words opened the second day of The Geneva Learning Foundation’s first-ever peer learning exercise on health equity. They also spoke to the very origin of the event itself. The Geneva Learning Foundation’s Certificate peer learning programme for equity in research and practice was created because thousands of health workers like Dr. Ishaku joined a global dialogue about equity and demanded a new kind of learning—one that moved beyond theory to provide practical tools for action. This inaugural session on 9 September 2025, called “Discovery Day,” was a direct answer to that call. It was not a lecture, but a three-hour, high-intensity workshop where the participants’ own experiences of inequity became the curriculum. …

Climate change and health: a new peer learning programme by and for health workers from the most climate-vulnerable countries

Reda SadkiGlobal health

GENEVA, Switzerland, 23 July 2025 (The Geneva Learning Foundation) –Today, The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) announces the launch of “Learning to lead change on the frontline of climate change and health,” the inaugural course in a new certificate programme designed by and for professionals facing climate change impacts on health. Enrollment is now open. The course will launch on 11 August 2025. Two years ago today, nearly 5,000 health professionals from across the developing world gathered online for an unprecedented conversation. They shared something most climate scientists had never heard: detailed, firsthand accounts of how rising temperatures, extreme weather, and environmental changes were already devastating the health of their communities. The stories were urgent and specific. A nurse in Ghana described managing surges of malaria after unprecedented flooding. A community health worker in Bangladesh explained how cholera outbreaks followed every major storm. A pharmacist in Nigeria watched children suffer malnutrition …

WHO Global Conference on Climate and Health: New pathways to overcome structural barriers blocking effective climate and health action

Reda SadkiGlobal health

After the World Health Assembly’s adoption of ambitious global plan of action for climate and health, global and country stakeholders are meeting in Brasilia for the Global Conference on Climate and Health, ahead of COP30. Three critical observations emerged that illuminate why conventional global health approaches may be structurally inadequate for the challenges resulting from climate change impacts on health. These observations carry particular significance for global health leaders who now possess a WHA-approved strategy and action plan, but lack proven mechanisms for rapid, community-led implementation in the face of an unprecedented set of challenges. They also matter for major funders whose substantial investments in policy and research have yet to be matched by commensurate support for the communities and health workers who will be the ones to translate better science and policy into action. Signal 1: When funding disappears and demand explodes Seventy percent of global health funding vanished, …

NIGERIA insights report cover

Nigeria Immunization Agenda 2030 Collaborative: Piloting a national peer learning programme

Reda SadkiGlobal health

Insights report about Nigeria’s Immunization Agenda 2030 Collaborative surfaces surprising solutions for both demand- and supply-side immunization challenges When 4,434 practitioners from all 36 states asked why children in their communities remained unvaccinated, the problems they thought they understood often had entirely different root causes. “I ended up being surprised at the answer I got,” said one health worker. Half of the health workers who participated in Nigeria’s largest-ever peer learning exercise in July 2024 discovered that their initial assumptions about local immunization challenges were wrong. The six-week programme generated 409 detailed analyses of local immunization challenges, with each reviewed by peers across the country. One year after The Geneva Learning Foundation launched the first Immunization Agenda 2030 Collaborative, in partnership with UNICEF and Gavi, under the auspices of the Nigeria Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), a comprehensive insights report documents findings that illuminate persistent gaps between health system …

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 …