Global health continues to grapple with a persistent tension between standardized, evidence-based interventions developed by international experts and the contextual, experiential local knowledge held by local health workers. This dichotomy – between global expertise and local knowledge – has become increasingly problematic as health systems face unprecedented complexity in addressing challenges from climate change to emerging diseases.

Nearly 300 malaria prevention health leaders from 45 countries met virtually on November 20, 2024, in parallel English and French sessions of REACH. This new initiative connects organizational leaders tackling malaria prevention and control – and other pressing health challenges – across borders.

Today, The Geneva Learning Foundation launched a new set of “Teach to Reach Questions” focused on how health workers protect community health during extreme weather events. This initiative comes at a crucial time, as world leaders at COP29 discuss climate change’s mounting impacts on health. As climate change intensifies extreme weather events worldwide, health workers are often the first to respond when disasters strike their communities.

Have you ever wished you could talk to another health worker who has faced the same challenges as you? Someone who found a way to keep helping people, even when things seemed impossible? That’s exactly the kind of active learning that Teach to Reach Questions make possible. They make peer learning easy for everyone who works for health. What are Teach to Reach Questions?

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.

At a symposium of the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) Annual Meeting, I explored how peer learning could help us tackle five critical challenges that limit effectiveness in global health. Performance : How do we move beyond knowledge gains to measurable improvements in health outcomes? Scale and access : How do we reach and include tens of thousands of health workers, not just dozens?

The 2024 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change “reveals the health threats of climate change have reached record-breaking levels” and provides “the most up-to-date assessment of the links between health and climate change”. Yet its treatment of experiential knowledge – particularly the direct observations and understanding developed by frontline health workers and communities – reveals both progress and persistent gaps in

A new article by Andy Haines, Elizabeth Wambui Kimani-Murage, and Anya Gopfert, “Strengthening primary health care in a changing climate,” outlines how climate change is already impacting health systems worldwide, with primary health care (PHC) workers bearing the immediate burden of response. Haines and colleagues make a compelling case for strengthening primary health care (PHC) as a cornerstone of climate-resilient health systems.

A health worker in rural Kenya notices that malaria cases are appearing earlier in the season than usual. A nurse in Bangladesh observes that certain neighborhoods are experiencing more heat-related illnesses despite similar temperatures. These observations often remain trapped in the realm of “anecdotal evidence.”

The Geneva Learning Foundation is launching REACH (Relate, Engage, Act, Connect, Help), a new leadership network to connect local, national, and international leaders of health organizations who are solving similar problems in different countries.

The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) will host its first physical-world meeting of Ghana Scholars and Alumni on Wednesday, October 30, 2024 in Accra. Seventy-two health professionals from across Ghana’s health system will participate in the evening event. The participants include staff from the Ghana Health Service, teaching hospitals, district health directorates, and non-governmental organizations.