HSR2020

The IWG was selected to develop and present a session at the Sixth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR2020) convened by Health Systems Global. Thus convened a special events TWG to prepare for the session. This group conducted a global survey to understand the perspectives of emerging professionals towards re-imagining and re-defining global leadership for health, and presented the findings of the survey, as well as a cross-regional summary of reigonal responses to the pandemic, virtually at the symposium.

hsg-presentation-1 Download

COVID-19 highlighted a need to rekindle the spirit of international collaboration and leadership for marshaling actions across multiple levels. An organized session was developed by the International Working Group for Health Systems Strengthening (IWG) for the HSR2020 Global Symposia to convene public health professionals to re-imagine and co-create a new vision for global health leadership, along with emerging public health changemakers across the world. With over 85% of global health organizations headquartered in Europe and North America, and 80% of organizational leadership coming from high-income countries, the session iterated the need to transform health systems to be capable of forming collectives that can better speak to contextually appropriate narratives, and aimed to push the needle forward by convening public health professionals across the spectrum to re-imagine and redefine a new vision for global health leadership. The session featured Dr. Else Toreele’s expert perspective about global health leadership in response to COVID-19; case examples of leadership responses across the regions; and key findings from an IWG survey that asked young public health professionals around the world to re-imagine global health leadership during COVID-19 and beyond.