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

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

Reda SadkiGlobal 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 …

Aerial view of a flooded urban residential area of Dera Allah yar city in Jaffarabad District, Baluchistan Province, Pakistan. Credit: Gavi/2022/Asad Zaidi

Ten eyewitness reports from the frontline of climate change and health

Reda SadkiGlobal health

The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) has created a platform enabling health workers to describe the impacts of climate change on their local communities. Here are ten of the most striking reports. Published on 30 November 2023 on the Gavi #VaccinesWork blog. Written by Ian Jones for Gavi. In July 2023, more than 1,200 health workers from 68 countries shared their experiences of changes in climate and health at a unique Geneva Learning Foundation event designed to shed light on the realities of climate impacts on the health of the communities they serve. A special TGLF report – On the frontline of climate change and health: A health worker eyewitness report – includes a compendium and analysis of these 1,200 health workers’ observations and insights. Here are ten of the most striking. Samuel Chukwuemeka Obasi, who works for the Ministry of Health in Abuja, Nigeria, has noticed big changes to the …

Rethinking Workplace Learning and Development

Learning-based complex work: how to reframe learning and development

Reda SadkiAbout me, Global health, Interviews, Published articles, The Geneva Learning Foundation

The following is excerpted from Watkins, K.E. and Marsick, V.J., 2023. Chapter 4. Learning informally at work: Reframing learning and development. In Rethinking Workplace Learning and Development. Edward Elgar Publishing. This chapter’s final example illustrates the way in which organically arising IIL (informal and incidental learning) is paired with opportunities to build knowledge through a combination of structured education and informal learning by peers working in frequently complex circumstances. Reda Sadki, president of The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF), rethought learning and development (L&D) for immunization workers in many roles in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Adapting to technology available to participants from the countries that joined this effort, Sadki designed a mix of experiences that broke out of the limits of “training” as it was often designed by conventional learning and development practitioners. He addressed, the inability to scale up to reach large audiences; difficulty to transfer what is learned; …

Teach to Reach

Teach to Reach: peer learning at scale

Reda SadkiThe Geneva Learning Foundation

Teach to Reach are fast-paced, dynamic digital events connecting local and global practitioners to each other in a new, potentially transformative shared dialogue.  Teach to Reach and other TGLF special events rally thousands, serving as powerful moments of inspiration, providing the amazing sensation of being connected with thousands of fellow, like-minded people and the impetus to transform this feeling into shared purpose and action.  Meet, network, and learn with colleagues from all over the world  Successive editions of TGLF’s flagship event series, “Teach to Reach: Connect”, enabled a cumulative total of 27,000 health professionals to share experiences, test approaches, and identify solutions with international experts listening and learning with them.  To learn more about the Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF), download our brochure, listen to our podcast, view our latest livestreams, subscribe to our insights, and follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Or introduce yourself to our Partnerships team.

Learning from Front-line Health Workers in the Climate Change Era

Learning from Frontline Health Workers in the Climate Change Era

Reda SadkiGlobal health, Writing

By Julie Jacobson, Alan Brooks, Charlotte Mbuh, and Reda Sadki The escalating threats of climate change cast long shadows over global health, including increases in disease epidemics, profound impacts on mental health, disruptions to health infrastructure, and alterations in the severity and geographical distribution of diseases. Mitigating the impact of such shadows on communities will test the resilience of health infrastructure in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and especially challenge frontline health workers. The need for effective and cost-efficient public health interventions, such as immunization, will evolve and grow. Health workers, approximately 70% of which are women, that provide immunization and other health services will be trusted local resources to the communities they serve, further amplifying their centrality in resilient health systems. Listening to and building upon the experiences and insights of frontline health workers as they live with and increasingly work to address the manifestations of climate change on …

How we make sense of complexity at The Geneva Learning Foundation

How we make sense of complexity, together, at the Geneva Learning Foundation

Reda SadkiThe Geneva Learning Foundation

Unique learning experiences generate not just data points but complex stories about what it takes to make change actually happen. By connecting the dots between ideas and implementation, we can zero in on the highest-value insights.  Our Insights Unit uses the latest advances in learning analytics to map how ideas and practices shared between countries and system levels make a difference.  The Unit facilitates international partners to work hand-in-hand with local practitioners.  In addition to thousands of local practitioners contributing and using insights to drive shared learning and action, our Insights Unit’s work is being used by leading global agencies. Examples include:  We are exploring affordable, practical ways to extract meaning from large data sets  To learn more about the Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF), download our brochure, listen to our podcast, view our latest livestreams, subscribe to our insights, and follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Or introduce yourself to our …

How does The Geneva Learning Foundation break the norm

How does the Geneva Learning Foundation’s approach break the norm?

Reda SadkiThe Geneva Learning Foundation

100% digital 100% human: using the latest learning technologies and interfaces, we adapt our digital networking interfaces to learner needs and habits to augment their digital and networking capabilities.  Grounded in experience: we foster problem-solving that values both participants’ lived experience and the world’s best available global knowledge.  We open access: participation can be opened for all, across geographic, sectoral or institutional barriers.  New knowledge is created through peer learning: national and international practitioners sharing experience, giving and receiving feedback, and using this new knowledge to solve problems together.  We build trust and mutual respect: safe spaces encourage authentic sharing of experiences to learn what actually works, how, and why.  Driven by intrinsic motivation: proven high engagement rates with no per diem or other extrinsic incentives.  Sustainability built-in: 78% of TGLF programme participants feel “capable” of using TGLF’s methodology for their own needs, and 82% want to organize their own activities using it with their colleagues.  To learn more about the …

The Geneva Learning Foundation- Localizing programming and grounding policy

The Geneva Learning Foundation: Localizing programming and grounding policy

Reda SadkiThe Geneva Learning Foundation

By defying distance to connect with each other, practitioners expand the realm of what they are able to know beyond their local boundaries.  Listening to these diverse voices and experiences is critical to inform programming, policy and decision-making and build bridges across sectoral silos and other boundaries, by providing:  Thousands of ideas are turned into action, results, and impact  In every TGLF programme, practitioners develop action plans and then report to each other as they implement, documenting results, outcomes, and impact to help each other.  Such peer accountability has proven more reliable, in some cases, than conventional monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.  For individuals, TGLF enables:  Measurable impact in countries: Examples of outcomes tracked in immunization since July 2019  To learn more about the Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF), download our brochure, listen to our podcast, view our latest livestreams, subscribe to our insights, and follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Or …

The Geneva Learning Foundation Scale, reach, and sustainability

The Geneva Learning Foundation: Scale, reach, and sustainability

Reda SadkiThe Geneva Learning Foundation

In its first years of operation, the Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) built digital infrastructure to foster and support several global networks and platforms connecting practitioners. Communities supported included:•  immunization and primary health care professionals,•  humanitarian workers advocating gender equality during disasters and other emergency operations,•  doctors, other health workers, and communities addressing neglected needs in women’s health, and•  health workers tackling neglected tropical diseases. This digital infrastructure enabled TGLF to rapidly respond to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first two years of the pandemic, a team of three people developed and implemented…  To learn more about the Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF), download our brochure, listen to our podcast, view our latest livestreams, subscribe to our insights, and follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Or introduce yourself to our Partnerships team.