Dear HIFA colleagues,
Please find below the citation and extracts of a new paper in the WHO Bulletin. Full text here:
I have quoted liberally from the paper as all of it is highly relevant to our exploration of civil society and evidence-informed policy (SUPPORT-SYSTEMS). I look forward to discussion on the issues raised. Does anyone have experience of the new WHO Knowledge Sharing Platform mentioned below?
CITATION: Bull World Health Organ. 2023 Mar 1; 101(3): 162–162A.
Published online 2023 Mar 1. doi: 10.2471/BLT.22.289237
Resilience to emergencies and civil society organizations
Hanna Teräs and Nellie Kartoglu
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9948501/
EXTRACTS
Health and development stakeholders increasingly recognize the role of civil society organizations in contributing to building community resilience to public health emergencies.1 Civil society organizations play a central role in delivering services and spreading awareness in communities, supporting the implementation of campaigns, and binding public and private outreach and development activities.2 These organizations contribute to social innovation;3 if empowered, they could become multipliers of knowledge.4
Between 2020 and 2022, with the support of the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, the World Health Organization (WHO) engaged 54 civil society organizations in 40 countries to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in the communities they serve... The impact of these interventions demonstrates the crucial role of local civil society organizations in service delivery, especially in communities where governments have limited or no access. Participatory community structures engaging community representatives and local authorities contribute to policy dialogue on inclusion, and demonstrate the need to systematically involve grassroots civil society organizations in decision-making, planning, implementation, monitoring and shared accountability regarding policies that affect the health and well-being of their communities.
Researchers recognize that providing these organizations with resources and skills for intranational and international cooperation is a priority in battling the effects of public health emergencies.6 Moreover, researchers have identified a growing need for organizations to obtain clear, relevant and easily accessible information concerning public health emergencies. Such studies largely see the learning of volunteers associated with civil society organizations and nongovernmental organizations as peripheral to volunteer work. Research and development have focused on the volunteers’ work, overlooking their learning. However, volunteers learn constantly by acquiring skills from the work they do. Consequently, a wealth of knowledge exists in communities and civil societies, much of which goes unnoticed, unleveraged and unshared.
Acknowledging the rising need for streaming up community expertise for the collaborative construction of knowledge, WHO has set up an informal online learning platform – the Knowledge Sharing Platform. The platform aspires to contribute to building resilient communities by engaging civil society organizations in learning through sharing experiences, best practices, solutions to health challenges and lessons learnt through grassroot involvement. The platform aims to make the knowledge and experience of these organizations visible and shared in an upstream manner. The platform also offers an opportunity for WHO and other health and development partners to better understand community needs. Better understanding of community needs helps health and development partners and governments to streamline solutions to evidence-based decision-making, and guides community-centred and community-led public health policies.
Developed on design principles derived from theories of andragogy (the science and practice of adult education), informal and self-directed learning, as well as online communities of practice, the platform is not an online learning platform or programme, but a space that encourages and values user expertise and contribution, and allows for different ways of using and interacting with content and features...
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Best wishes, Neil
Joint Coordinator, HIFA SUPPORT-SYSTEMS
https://www.hifa.org/projects/new-support-systems-how-can-decision-makin...
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org
