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Tag: climate

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

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

    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 as crops failed during extended droughts.

    “I can hear the worry in your voices,” one global health partner told participants during those historic July 2023 events, “and I really respect the time that you are giving to tell us about what is happening to you directly.”

    Connecting the dots from individual impact to systemic crisis

    While climate change dominates headlines for its environmental and economic impacts, a parallel health crisis has been quietly unfolding in clinics and hospitals across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Health workers have become first-hand witnesses to climate change’s human toll.

    Dr. Seydou Mohamed Ouedraogo from Burkina Faso described devastating floods that “really marked the memory of the inhabitants” and led to cascading health impacts.

    Felix Kole from Gambia reported that “wells have turned to salty water” due to rising sea levels, while extreme heat meant “people are no longer sleeping inside their houses,” creating new security and health complications.

    Rebecca Akello, a public health nurse from Uganda, documented malnutrition impacts directly: “During dry spells where there is no food, children come and their growth monitoring shows they really score low weight for age.”

    Health professionals like Dr. Iktiyar Kandaker from Bangladesh already get that this is a systemic challenge: “Our health system is not prepared to actually address these situations. So this is a combined challenge… but it requires a lot of time to fix it.”

    These health workers serve as what TGLF calls “trusted advisors”—over half describe themselves as being like “members of the family” to the populations they serve. Yet until now, they have had no structured way to learn from each other’s experiences or develop coordinated responses to climate health challenges.

    Learning from those who know because they are there every day

    “It is something that all of us have to join hands to be able to do the most we can to educate our communities on what they can do,” said Monica Agu, a community pharmacist from Nigeria who participated in the founding 2023 events. Her words captured the collaborative spirit that has driven the programme’s development.

    The new certificate programme employs TGLF’s proven peer learning methodology, recognizing that health workers are already implementing life-saving climate adaptations with limited resources. During the 2023 events, participants shared examples of modified immunization schedules during heat waves, cholera outbreak management after flooding, and maintaining health services during extreme weather events.

    “We believe that investing in health workers is one of the best ways to accelerate and strengthen the response to climate change impacts on health,” explains TGLF Executive Director Reda Sadki.

    The programme has been developed from comprehensive analysis of health worker experiences documented since 2023. Most observations come from small and medium-sized communities in the most climate-vulnerable countries.

    For health, a different kind of climate action

    Unlike traditional climate programmes focused on policy or infrastructure, this initiative recognizes that effective climate health responses must be developed by those experiencing the impacts firsthand. The course enables health workers to share their own experiences, learn from colleagues facing similar challenges, and develop both individual and collective responses.

    Dr. Eme Ngeda from the Democratic Republic of Congo captured this approach during the 2023 events: “We are all responsible for these climate disruptions. We must sensitize our populations in waste management and sensitize how to reform our healthcare providers to face resilience, face disasters.”

    The programme connects leaders from more than 4,000 locally-led health organizations through TGLF’s REACH network, enabling them to become programme partners supporting their health workers in developing climate-health leadership skills.

    Building global solutions by connecting local, indigenous knowledge and expertise

    The inaugural course offers health professionals worldwide the opportunity to learn from documented experiences of colleagues who are facing unprecedented consequences of climate change on health. Rather than lectures or theoretical frameworks, the programme employs structured reflection and peer feedback cycles, enabling participants to develop actionable implementation plans informed by peer knowledge and global guidance.

    The course covers four key areas based on health worker experiences:

    • Climate and environmental changes: Recognizing connections between climate and health in local communities.
    • Health impacts on communities: Understanding direct health impacts, food security, and mental health effects.
    • Changing disease patterns: Managing infectious diseases, respiratory conditions, and healthcare access challenges.
    • Community responses and adaptations: Implementing local solutions and innovations from peer experiences.

    Participants earn verified certificates aligned to professional development competency frameworks. Upon completion, they join TGLF’s global community of health practitioners for ongoing peer support and collaboration.

    The urgency of now

    The programme launches at a critical moment. Climate change impacts on health are accelerating, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where health systems are least equipped to respond. Yet these same regions are producing innovative, resource-efficient solutions that could benefit communities worldwide.

    As one health worker reflected during the 2023 events: “Although climate change is a global phenomenon, it is affecting very, very locally people in very different ways.” The new programme acknowledges this reality while creating pathways for local solutions to inform global responses.

    The course is available in English and French, designed to work on mobile devices and basic internet connections. It is free for health workers in participating countries.

    For health workers who have been managing climate impacts in isolation, the programme offers something unprecedented: the chance to learn from colleagues who truly understand their challenges and to contribute their own expertise to a growing global knowledge base.

    As the climate health crisis deepens, the solutions may well come from those who have been living with its impacts longest—if we finally give them the platforms and recognition they deserve.

    Image: The Geneva Learning Foundation Collection © 2025

  • The imperative for climate action to protect health and the role of education

    The imperative for climate action to protect health and the role of education

    “The Imperative for Climate Action to Protect Health” is an article that examines the current and projected health impacts of climate change, as well as the potential health benefits of actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The authors state that “climate change is causing injuries, illnesses, and deaths, with the risks projected to increase substantially with additional climate change.” 

    Specifically, the article notes that approximately “250,000 deaths annually between 2030 and 2050 could be due to climate change–related increases in heat exposure in elderly people, as well as increases in diarrheal disease, malaria, dengue, coastal flooding, and childhood stunting.” The impacts will fall disproportionately on vulnerable populations, and climate change “could force more than 100 million people into extreme poverty by 2030.”

    The article discusses major exposure pathways that link climate hazards to health outcomes like “heat-related illness and death, illnesses caused by poor air quality, undernutrition from reduced food quality and security, and selected vectorborne diseases.” It also notes that “the effects of climate change on mental health are increasingly recognized.”

    Importantly, the authors argue that “opportunities exist to capitalize on environmental data to develop early warning and response systems” to help adaptation efforts. Furthermore, “investments in and policies to promote proactive and effective adaptation and reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions (mitigation) would decrease the magnitude and pattern of health risks.”

    The article highlights that “transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transportation, and cities” aimed at “limiting global warming to 1.5°C” would bring substantial public health benefits. For example, “strong climate policies consistent with the 2°C Paris Agreement target could prevent approximately 175,000 premature deaths” in the US by 2030. More broadly, the authors state that “policies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in the energy sector, housing, transportation; and agriculture and food systems can result in near-term ancillary benefits to human health.”

    The review thus underscores that “protecting [public] health demands decisive actions from health professionals and governments” in tackling climate change through adaptation and ambitious mitigation policies that yield health “co-benefits.”

    What is the role of education?

    The review article presents clear evidence that climate change is already severely harming public health, with escalating threats projected, particularly for vulnerable communities. It rightly argues that responding effectively requires urgent adaptation and emissions reductions prioritizing those most impacted.

    However, conventional top-down approaches to climate and health in global health are unlikely to achieve the rapid, scalable results needed. Such traditional modalities tend to be ponderously slow, generate knowledge not readily actionable, and fail to reach those on the frontlines in marginalized locales.

    Building a new scientific field around climate and health may take years using conventional approaches.

    What we would wish for instead is a decentralized, grassroots peer learning system that can directly empower and assist under-resourced local health workers confronting growing climate-health crises.

    Specifically, a digital network interconnecting one million such frontline personnel to share granular insights on how climate change is damaging community health in their areas.

    This system would facilitate collaborative design of hyperlocal adaptation initiatives tailored to each locale’s distinct climate-health challenges.

    It would channel localized knowledge to shape responsive national policies rooted in lived realities on the ground.

    Digital tools would amplify voices of those observing firsthand impacts too often excluded.

    And participatory methods would synthesize nuanced community observations lacking in conventional statistics.

    This locally-attuned, equity-oriented learning infrastructure could unlock community leadership to catalyze climate-health solutions where needs are greatest. 

    It represents the kind of decentralized, rapidly scalable approach essential to address the review’s calls for urgent action assisting vulnerable groups most harmed by climate change.

    Reference: Haines, A., Ebi, K., 2019. The Imperative for Climate Action to Protect Health. N Engl J Med 380, 263–273. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMra1807873

    Illustration: The Geneva Learning Foundation Collection © 2024

  • Climate change is a threat to the health of the communities we serve: health workers speak out at COP28

    Climate change is a threat to the health of the communities we serve: health workers speak out at COP28

    The Geneva Learning Foundation’s Charlotte Mbuh spoke today at the COP28 Health Pavilion in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). Watch the speech at COP28…

    Good afternoon. I am Charlotte Mbuh. I have worked for the health of children and families in Cameroon for over 15 years.

    I am one of more than 5,500 health workers from 68 countries who have connected to share our observations of how climate is affecting the health of those we serve. 

    “Going back home to the community where I grew up as a child, I was shocked to see that most of the rivers we used to swim and fish in have all dried up, and those that are still there have become very shallow so that you can easily walk through a river you required a boat to cross in years past.”

    These are the words of Samuel Chukwuemeka Obasi, a health worker from Nigeria.

    Dr Kumbha Gopi, a health worker from India said: “The use of motor vehicles has led to an increase in air pollution and we see respiratory problems and skin diseases”.

    Climate change is hurting the health of those we serve. And it is getting worse.

    Few here would deny that health workers are an essential voice to listen to in order to understand climate impacts on health.

    Yet, a man named Jacob on social media snapped: “Since when are health workers the authority on air pollution?”

    Here are the words of Bie Lilian Mbando, a health worker from my country: “Where I live in Buea, the flood from Mount Cameroon took away all belongings of people in my neighborhood and killed a secondary school student who was playing football with his friends.”

    Climate change is killing communities.

    Cecilia Nabwirwa, a nurse in Nairobi, Kenya: “I remember my grand-son getting sick after eating vegetables grown along areas flooded by sewage. Since then I resolved to growing my own vegetables to ensure healthy eating.”

    And yet, another man on social media, Robert, found this “ridiculous. As if my friend who sells fish at his fish stall comes as an expert on water quality.”

    I wondered: why such brutal responses?

    Well, unlike scientists or global agencies, we cannot be dismissed as “experts from on-high”.

    What we know, we know because we are here every day.

    We are part of the community.

    And we know that climate change is a threat to the health of the communities we serve.

    We are already having to manage the impacts of climate change on health.

    We are doing the best that we can.

    But we need your support.

    The global community is investing in building a new scientific field around climate and health.

    Massive investments are also being made in policy.

    Are we making a commensurate investment in people and communities?

    That should mean investing in health workers.

    What will happen if this investment is neglected?

    What if big global donors say: “it’s important, but it’s not part of our strategy?”

    Well, in 5, 10, or 15 years, we will certainly have much improved science and, hopefully, policy.

    Yet, some communities might reject better science and policy.

    Will the global community then wonder: “Why don’t they know what’s good for them?” 

    I am an immunization worker. For over 15 years, I have worked for my country’s ministry of health.

    Like my colleagues from all over the world, I know more than a little about what it takes to establish and maintain trust.

    Trust in vaccination, trust in public health.

    Trust that by standing together in the face of critical threats to our societies, we all stand to do better.

    Local communities in the poorest countries are already bearing the brunt of climate change effects on health.

    Local solutions are needed.

    Health workers are trusted advisors to the communities we serve.

    With every challenge, there is an opportunity.

    On 28 July 2023, 4,700 health workers began learning from each other through the Geneva Learning Foundation’s platform, community, and network.

    Thousands more are connecting with each other, because they choose to.

    And because they want to take action.

    It is our duty to support them.

    In March 2024, we will hold the tenth Teach to Reach conference.

    The last edition reached over 17,000 health workers from more than 80 countries.

    This time, our focus will be on climate and health.

    We invite global partners to join, to listen and to learn.

    We invite you to consider how you, your organization, your government might support action by health workers on the frontline.

    Because we will rise.

    As health workers, with or without your support, we will continue to stand up with courage, compassion and commitment, working to lift up our communities.

    Our perseverance calls us all to press forward towards climate justice and health equity.

    I wish to challenge us, as a global community, to rise together, so that  the voices of those on the frontline of climate change will be at the next Conference of Parties.

    By standing together, we all stand to do better.

    Thank you.

  • Investing in the health workforce is vital to tackle climate change: A new report shares insights from over 1,200 on the frontline

    Investing in the health workforce is vital to tackle climate change: A new report shares insights from over 1,200 on the frontline

    Geneva, Switzerland (1 December 2023) – The Geneva Learning Foundation has published a new report titled “On the frontline of climate change and health: A health worker eyewitness report.” The report shares first-hand experiences from over 1,200 health workers in 68 countries who are first responders already battling climate consequences on health.

    As climate change intensifies health threats, local health professionals may offer one of the most high-impact solutions.

    Charlotte Mbuh of The Geneva Learning Foundation, said: “Local health workers are trusted advisers to communities. They are first to observe health consequences of climate change, before the global community is able to respond. They can also be first to respond to limit damage to health.”

    Listen to Charlotte Mbuh’s speech at the COP28 Healthcare Pavilion on 11 December 2023. Read the full speech…

    “Health workers are already taking action with communities to mitigate and respond to the health effects of climate change, often with little or no recognition,” said Reda Sadki, President of The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF). “If we want to build and maintain trust in climate science, policy, and action, we need to invest in the workforce, as they are the ones that communities rely on to make sense of what is changing.” 

    The report vividly illustrates the profound impacts climate change is already having on health, as shared by health workers themselves.

    The wide-ranging health consequences directly observed by health workers include malnutrition due to crop failures, increasing incidence of infectious diseases, widespread mental health impacts, and reduced access to health services. Here are three examples.

    • Bie Lilian Mbando, a health worker in Cameroon: “Where I live in Buea, the flood from Mount Cameroon took away all belongings of people in my neighbourhood and killed a secondary school student who was playing football with his friends.”
    • Cecilia Nabwirwa, a nurse in Nairobi, Kenya: “I remember my grand-child getting sick after eating vegetables grown along sewage areas. Since then I resolved to growing my own vegetables to ensure healthy eating.”
    • Alhassan Kenneth Mohammed, health facility worker in Ghana: “During the rainy season, it is very difficult for people to seek care for their health needs. They wait for the condition to get worse before coming to the facility.”

    Surprising insights from these experiences include:

    • Climate change worsens menstrual hygiene: Scarce water access brought by droughts can severely affect women’s ability to maintain proper menstrual hygiene. “Women and girls have challenges during menstruation as there is limited water,” noted one community health worker.
    • Respiratory disease spikes with prolonged dust storms: Multiple health workers traced a rise in chronic coughs and other respiratory illness directly back to longer dry seasons and dust storms in areas turned to desert by climate shifts.
    • Crop failure drives up alcohol abuse among men: In farming regions struggling with drought, women health practitioners connected livelihood loss to a stark rise in substance abuse, specifically alcoholism among men. “There has been job loss, low income, and depression. Also, men became alcoholics, which is now a national menace,” described one district-level worker.

    Reda Sadki explains: “The experiences shared provide vivid illustrations of the human impacts of climate change. By giving a voice to health workers on the front lines, the report highlights the urgent need to support local action with communities to build resilience. This report is only a first step that needs to lead to action.”

    Beyond the report, an opportunity to scale locally-led action using innovative approaches 

    As John Wabwire Shikuku, a community health worker from Port Victoria Sun County Hospital in Kenya, explains: “What gives me hope and keeps me going in my work is witnessing the growing awareness and mobilization of young people to address climate change, the development of sustainable solutions, and the potential for global collaboration to safeguard their future.”

    We need new approaches to supporting climate and health action. We need to go directly to those on climate change’s frontlines – connecting local health workers globally not just to share struggles but lead action.

    • Rather than siloed programs, we need radically participatory solutions that distill and share hyperlocal innovations across massive peer groups in real-time.
    • Through new approaches, we can rapidly distill hyperlocal insights and multiplier solutions no top-down program matches.

    The Geneva Learning Foundation’s proven peer learning model provides one such solution to connect and amplify local action across boundaries, offering those on the frontline tailored support and capabilities to lead context-specific solutions.

    How to access the report

    The report “On the frontline of climate change and health: A health worker eyewitness report” is available here: https://www.learning.foundation/cop28. An abridged Summary report and an At a glance executive summary are also available, together with a compendium of 50 health worker experiences.

    Watch the Special Event: From community to planet: Health professionals on the frontlines of climate change

    What happens next?

    • Register here to receive email updates from The Geneva Learning Foundation about climate and health.
    • During COP28, health workers are answering this question: “If you could ask the leaders at COP28 to do one thing right now to keep your community healthy, what would it be?”. You can find their responses on LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Facebook, and Instagram.

    About The Geneva Learning Foundation

    Learn more about The Geneva Learning Foundation: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7316466

    Created by a group of learning innovators and scientists with the mission to discover new ways to lead change, TGLF’s team combines over 70 years of experience with both country-based (field) work and country, region, and global partners.

    • Our small, fully remote agile team already supports over 60,000 health practitioners leading change in 137 countries.
    • We reach the front lines: 21% face armed conflict; 25% work with refugees or internally-displaced populations; 62% work in remote rural areas; 47% with the urban poor; 36% support the needs of nomadic/migrant populations.

    TGLF’s unique package:

    1. Helps local actors take action with communities to tackle local challenges, and
    2. provides the tools to build a global network, platform, and community of health workers that can scale up local impact for global health.

    In 2019, research showed that TGLF’s approach can accelerate locally-led implementation of innovative strategies by 7X, and works especially well in fragile contexts.

  • Before, during, and after COP28: Climate crisis and health, through the eyes of health workers from Africa, Asia, and Latin America 

    Before, during, and after COP28: Climate crisis and health, through the eyes of health workers from Africa, Asia, and Latin America 

    Samuel Chukwuemeka Obasi, a health professional from Nigeria:

    “Going back home to the community where I grew up as a child, I was shocked to see that most of the rivers we used to swim and fish in have all dried up, and those that are still there have become very shallow so that you can easily walk through a river you required a boat to cross in years past.”

    In July 2023, more than 1200 health workers from 68 countries shared their experiences of changes in climate and health, at a unique event designed to shed light on the realities of climate impacts on the health of the communities they serve.

    Before, during and after COP28, we are sharing health workers’ observations and insights.

    Follow The Geneva Learning Foundation to learn how climate change is affecting health in multiple ways:

    • How extreme weather events can lead to tragic loss of life.
    • How changing weather patterns are leading to crop failures and malnutrition, and forcing people to abandon their homes.
    • How infectious diseases are surging as mosquitoes proliferate and water sources are contaminated.
    • How climate stresses are particularly problematic for those with existing health conditions, like cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
    • How climate impacts are having a devastating effect on mental health as people’s ways of life are destroyed.
    • How climate change is changing the very fabric of society, driving displacement and social hardship that undermines health and wellbeing.
    • How a volatile climate is disrupting the delivery of essential health services and people’s ability to access them.
    • We will finish the series with  inspiring stories of how health workers are already responding to such challenges, working with communities to counter the effects of a changing climate.

    On 1 December 2023, TGLF will be publishing a compendium and analysis of these 1200 contributions – On the frontline of climate change and health: A health worker eyewitness report. Get the report…

    This landmark report – a global first – kickstarts our campaign to ensure that health workers in the Global South are recognized as:

    • The people already having to manage the impacts of climate change on health.
    • An essential voice to listen to in order to understand climate impacts on health.
    • A potentially critical group to work with to protect the health of communities in the face of a changing climate.

    Before, during, and after COP28, we are advocating for the recognition and support of health workers as trusted advisers to communities bearing the brunt of climate change effects on health.

    Watch the Special Event: From community to planet: Health professionals on the frontlines of climate change