G2H2 guide: Covid-19 related dialogue meetings between civil society organizations and WHO Director-General Dr Tedros
Follow-up meetings, 2021
Follow-up dialogue on Palliative Care
Wednesday, 28 April 2021, as agreed by WHO Director General during the dialogue held on 25 November 2020 (see below)
Follow-up dialogue on Healthy Ageing
Wednesday, 16 June 2021, as agreed by the Director General during the dialogue on this issue held on 4 November 2020 (see below).
Follow-up dialogue on Social Participation and Accountability
Wednesday, 25 August 2021 as agreed by the Director General during the dialogue on this issue held on 13 October 2020 (see below).
Documentation here
Initial series of dialogue meetings, 2020
6th dialogue meeting, Wednesday 16 December 2020
Digital health during COVID-19. Opportunities and Challenges
“We have the pleasure of inviting you to participate in an interactive civil society dialogue with WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, on the theme ‘Digital Health during COVID-19: Opportunities and Challenges’, to take place on Wednesday, December 16, 2020 at 3:00-4:30 PM Central European Time (GMT + 01:00). This invitation is open to all members of civil society organizations (CSOs), so please share this invitation with your networks.
Organized by the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) and IMIA’s International Academy for Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI), this dialogue is part of the series of CSO – WHO DG dialogues selected by CSOs to be organized on different topics of interest for the civil society related to COVID-19 response.
This dialogue on digital health is designed to enable meaningful engagement of WHO with global, national, and local CSOs. The objectives are to provide opportunities for open discussion, to identify priorities and areas of work to advance the implementation and uptake of several WHO resolutions relevant to digital health. Representatives of international, regional, and national health informatics organizations will address the technological, organizational, legal and ethical challenges regarding digital health that nations face during the Covid-19 pandemic, along with the opportunities that arise from it. Experts in the field will propose policies and strategies to achieve digital health integration into health systems and better preparedness for pandemic situations.”
Announcement sent out by WHO Secretariat, 9 December 2020
5th Dialogue meeting, Wednesday 25 November 2020, 15.00-16.30 CET
Integration of Palliative Care into National COVID Response Plans
“We have the pleasure of inviting you to participate in an interactive civil society dialogue with WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, on the theme “Integration of Palliative Care into National COVID Response Plans per WHA73/1”, to take place on November 25, 2020 at 3:00-4:30 Central European Time (GMT + 01:00). This invitation is open to all members of civil society organizations (CSOs), so please share this invitation with your networks.
Organized by the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care, the Worldwide Hospice and Palliative Care Alliance, and the International Federation on Ageing, this dialogue is part of the series of CSO – WHO DG dialogues selected by CSOs to be organized on different topics of interest for the civil society related to COVID-19 response.
This dialogue on palliative care is designed to enable meaningful engagement of WHO with global, national, and local CSOs. The objectives are to provide opportunities for open discussion, to identify priorities and areas of work to advance the implementation and uptake of several WHO resolutions relevant to palliative care.
Representatives of international, regional, and national palliative care organizations will address the inequity gap of access to treatment and care, and propose policies and strategies to achieve palliative care integration into primary healthcare under universal health coverage.”
Announcement sent out by the WHO Secretariat on 18 November 2020
4th dialogue meeting, Wednesday 4 November 2020
Strengthening connections across sectors: Building partnerships for healthy ageing in and beyond the COVID-19 era
“We have the pleasure to invite you to participate in an interactive civil society dialogue with WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, on the theme “Strengthening connections across sectors: Building partnerships for healthy ageing in and beyond the COVID-19 era”, to take place on Wednesday 4 November 2:00-3:30 CEST (GMT + 02:00). This invitation is open to all civil society members, please share this invitation with your networks (including French and Spanish networks) .
This dialogue forms one of the dialogues in the series of Civil society – WHO Director General dialogues selected by CSOs to be organized on different topics of interest for the civil society related to COVID-19 response. It is organized by International Federation on Ageing and ILC Global Alliance and supported by over 20 organizations.
Older people and those with underlying health conditions are facing the most significant risks from COVID-19, yet neither are they invisible or powerless. In this space of both tragedy and opportunity CSOs working with these groups are the glue of solidarity globally, nationally, locally and at the community level. WHO leadership has a pivotal role to play in reinforcing the need for strategic action across WHO Departments and offices, with a common goal of improving the health (in the broadest sense) and well being of older people, and protecting their rights, during and living with the impact of the pandemic. Join this innovative program of lightning talks on technical and systemic issues, good practice and concrete action which we believe will support a stronger focus on healthy ageing at global, regional, national and community levels.”
Source: Invitation sent out by the WHO Secretariat on 30 October
Third dialogue meeting, Tuesday 13 October 2020
Social participation and accountability within and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic
This civil society dialogue with the WHO leadership focused on three interrelated challenges in the promotion of social participation and accountability as a core element of democratic governance within and beyond the Covid-19 pandemic:
- In its interaction with Member States on promoting social participation and accountability at country level, WHO to provide political leadership beyond technical guidance
- In its own fields of work and related institutional processes and arenas, WHO to consistently deal with civil society engagement as a matter of social participation and accountability
- Civil society organizations, networks and platforms to get better organized in the promotion of good governance at all levels and at the same time consistently address own shortcomings in the field of participation and accountability
Meeting websites with documentations
- G2H2 website of this meeting, with follow-up meeting on 27 October
- CSEM website of this meeting
- COPASAH website of this meeting
Civil society co-organizers
Second dialogue meeting, Friday 2 October 2020
Promoting the health and wellbeing of young people during the COVID-19 pandemic: Leveraging youth engagement in participatory governance
This session focused on the importance of youth participation in the global COVID-19 response. As a group that is highly affected by the pandemic and the subsequent restrictive measures, it is essential for young people to not only be beneficiaries or stakeholders, but also be centrally involved as the designers and implementers in the global action for COVID-19 prevention and control. Using lessons learned from young people involved in advocacy for non-communicable diseases (NCDs), the session highlighted opportunities for youth to be engaged in planning and decision making processes to create a sustainable response that leads to more robust health systems.
Outline of the meeting
- Welcome
- Part 1: Challenges faced by Youth during COVID-19: Health Systems Overview
- Part 2: Youth Participation and Structures that Promote Youth Engagement
- Part 3: Investing in Youth
- DG remarks
- Summary and Next Steps
- Final Remarks
Civil society speakers
- Chantelle Booysen – Global Mental Health Advocate and Social Impact Entrepreneur, South Africa
- Dr. Flavia Bustreo – Vice-Chair of Fondation Botnar, Co-Chair of The Lancet Commission on Gender-Based Violence and maltreatment of young people, Switzerland
- Pierre Cooke – Leader of Government Business – Barbados Youth Parliament, Youth Technical Advisor, Healthy Caribbean Coalition, Barbados
- Omnia El Omrani – Liaison Officer for Public Health Issues, International Federation of Medical Students’ Association, Egypt
- Dr. Apoorva Gomber – Community Manager/ Co-founder Diabetes India Youth in Action (DIYA), Young Leader in Diabetes (International Diabetes Federation), India
- Julius Kramer – Youth Advisor, World Organization of the Scout Movement, Sweden
- Dr. Marián Sedlák – Junior Doctor, Resident, Emergency Medicine; PhD student Pavol Jozef Šafárik University, Slovakia
The session was moderated by Dr. Marie Hauerslev – Chair, NCD Child, Denmark
Source: Announcements by WHO Secretariat and NCD Child
Meeting organized by NCD Child together with the WHO Secretariat
First dialogue meeting on Tuesday, 1 September 2020
Achieving a gender transformative COVID response
This meeting was organized and co-hosted by GENDRO and Women in Global Health together with the WHO Secretariat. It was announced as follows: “Through a dynamic, solutions-oriented dialogue session, this will be an opportunity to highlight three specific aspects of gender transformation: leadership, including in the response to COVID at local, national, regional and international levels; data, particularly strategies to ensure the collection and use of gender disaggregated data in times of COVID; and health care, with a focus on women on the frontlines. The session seeks to focus on solutions and strategies for progress, including what civil society asks of WHO and also what civil society itself can do.”
Sub-topics and speakers/panellists
Leadership
- Sarah Hillware, Deputy Director, Women in Global Health (USA)
- Dr Amina Jama, Women in Global Health (Somalia)
Data
- Dr Shirin Heidari, President and Founder of GENDRO (Switzerland)
- Ricardo Baruch D. | Regional Advocacy Officer, IPPF/Western Hemisphere (Mexico)
Health care
- Dr Nicole Fouda Mbarga, Alliance for Gender Equality and UHC, MSF, (Cameroon)
- Dr Denise Nacif Pimenta, Gender and COVID-19 Working Group (Brasil)
The meeting was moderated by Roopa Dhatt, Women in Global Health (USA).
WHO Secretariat respondents: DG Dr Tedros, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist; Dr Samira ASMA, ADG Data, Analytics and Delivery for Impact; Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, Unit head, WHE; Gabby Stern, Director Communications; Dr James Campbell, Director, Health Workforce, and Dr Gaudenz Silberschmidt, Director, Health and Multilateral Partnerships.
References, input, outcome
- Zoom video recording: here
Access Passcode: #CsO2020 - Read the CSO expectations and commitments the panellists referred to in the dialogue session in the document “Achieving a Gender Transformative COVID-19 response” published by Women in Global Health: womeningh.org/post/achieving
- The outcome of this dialogue meeting according to Women in Global Health: “We have charted the following course of action on Gender and COVID-19 between WHO and CSOs: (1) Establishing a Gender and COVID-19 Task Team (Working Group); (2) Contributing to the roster of WHO Experts on Health Emergencies to be both gender; and geographically diverse; (3) Encourage the Solidarity Fund to consider applying a gender lens to their funding; (4) Having a gender perspective to all future civil society dialogues.”. Read their outcome report here: https://mailchi.mp/44639f5bf95e/who-csos-gender-covid19-4833778
- At the dialogue meeting, WHO DG Tedros also announced that WHO will set up, as part of the overall availability of WHO to work together with civil society on the Covid-19 response, and to support civil society work, a “mechanism with the Solidarity Resonse Fund, to provide grants for innovative projects proposed by civil societes and community groups”.
Background and history
WHO and CSO “townhall meetings”
In May 2020, “in light of limited CSO engagement with WHO throughout the COVID-19 crisis”, a group of civil society organizations reached out to the WHO Director General’s office for a community conversation and secured a “townhall meeting” with Dr Tedros on 26 May 2020. In its communications, the group expressed its hope that the townhall meeting with the DG would “help jumpstart an ongoing conversation and process with WHO staff about the value we add to their work and clear next steps for how we might partner.”
Responding to the ad hoc initiative and related feedback, the WHO Secretariat invited civil society organizations to a first “webinar” on the 8 July with Dr Tedros on “Civil society engagement in COVID-19 response at national and local levels”. According to WHO, “the topic for the webinar was chosen as many civil society networks expressed that they should and would like to be more engaged in the COVID-19 response. This is the first of the series of webinars that will be organized on different topics of interest to the civil society and WHO collaboration related to COVID-19 response and later on also potentially on other topics.”
Programming an initial series of CSO-DG dialogue meetings
In a feedback session after the “webinar” on 8 July, it was agreed for a small group of CSO representatives to come together to moderate the process of programming a continued series of such Covid-19 related civil society dialogue meetings with Dr Tedros. On 3 August, the “small group” together with the WHO Secretariat issued a Call for Proposals (see PDF file) that found considerable attention, with 43 consortia responding and submitting proposals.
In its call for proposal, the group wrote: “After the good start with the civil society webinar with WHO DG Dr Tedros on 8 July, we still need to define the expected long term outcomes of this series of DG meetings, as part of a more meaningful engagement of WHO with civil society. However, the urgent first step is to implement an initial series of meetings in a way that leads to a positive dynamic and reconfirmed engagement of both the WHO leadership team and the civil society organizations involved.”
The group defined the “main characteristics of success” of such civil society meetings with the WHO DG as follows:
- thematically relevant and timely
- include a major cause to mobilisation
- conveying concrete actions
- inclusive, open to input, and triggering broad engagement
- well governed and managed process
The call for proposals and the process for the review and selection of the themes for the CSO – WHO DG dialogue series was conducted by the small group of volunteer CSO representatives. The criteria included: relevance of the issue for civil society, urgency of the matter in the context of COVID-19, validity to organize a meeting with the WHO DG, concreteness of the proposal and clarity in its follow-up, as well as a persuasive outline and format.
Based on this review and a resulting shortlist submitted by the small group to the WHO Secretariat, an initial programme of dialogue sessions was confirmed and communicated by WHO to the consortia that had submitted proposals. The WHO Secretariat confirmed to G2H2 that they are available for responding to any queries by consortium leaders regarding the modalities of the review and the details of their assessment.
Dialogue meetings hosted by the WHO Secretariat
The initial series of dialogue meetings is hosted and technically run by the WHO Secretariat, using Zoom conference platform. The invitations are sent out by the Secretariat, based on the format and programme details and list of speakers/panellists/WHO representatives agreed with the civil society organizers of a dialogue meeting. The meeting itself is moderated and managed by the civil society co-organizers, with the WHO Secretariat providing support.
An early assessment of this initiative
After the difficult debates of the last two years on how to frame a more meaningful engagement of the World Health Organization with civil society, we welcome this series of “dialogue meetings” between civil society organizations and the WHO Director-General. While such informal “civil society dialogues” cannot replace but only complement proper hearings and consultations and the formal participation of civil society in WHO governance, we hope that these meetings will contribute to re-establishing a sound and sustained interaction between the WHO Secretariat and civil society in the sense of the former “civil society initiative”, and taking up some of the proposals of the 2018 “WHO civil society task team”, But, for a good start, the governance and management of this initiative are key. So let us engage, share assessments and review the initiative at the end of the year, after the first and hopefully successful series of dialogue meetings. The start has been a good one.
This informal guide to the civil society dialogue meetings with WHO Director-General Dr Tedros and his team is provided by G2H2 as a service to its members and partners. Our guide is based on information available at our secretariat and will be updated and extended regularly.
Author and contact: Thomas Schwarz, Medicus Mundi International Network / G2H2 Secretariat, schwarz@medicusmundi.org