WHO South-East Asia Dialogue
Overview
In today’s interconnected and hyperconnected world, those in a fast-changing field such as health must keep running on the knowledge treadmill. Health science and technology are rapidly evolving. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that the pace of knowledge generation and dissemination is closely connected with the very survival and future of humanity. Therefore, all available means should be deployed for the rapid spread of knowledge, experience, best practices and risks in all health-related disciplines. One of the best ways for a technical agency like ours to remain updated is to interact with experts engaged at the forefront of emerging research, new technologies and practices in the evolving landscape of global health.
In line with the concept and objectives of the WHO Dialogue as laid out by the Regional Director, the format of the series was kept nimble and lean. It has been designed to be less formal and more interactive. The talks delivered by experts are kept focused and concise. The speakers are requested to deliver a single message in a 20-minute talk with no more than ten slides. The presentation is followed by questions and answers from those present in the room as well as those joining via video conferencing. The WHO Dialogues are video-recorded and subsequently shared on the WHO website and appropriate social media platforms. We aim to hold one Dialogue during the first week of every month when there is a travel ban, which ensures that all staff can attend and benefit.
A good number of experts fly to New Delhi for various conferences and meetings and this allows them to be invited to the Regional Office for WHO Dialogue. In addition, New Delhi is home to several leading health institutions with many global experts in health. We have been able to draw gainfully from this pool of expertise as well. In addition to those in the Regional Office, technical staff in all WHO country offices are encouraged to join via videoconferencing. A large number of them from all countries in the Region have been able to participate in the monthly dialogues and interact with the speakers.
The Dialogue series has covered an array of subjects and diverse expertise. When the series was launched in early 2020, COVID-19 was yet to be declared as a pandemic. The first few lectures in the series from March 2020 onward focused on different aspects of the pandemic, and the lectures had to be organized in a hybrid mode. The great number of lectures in the series covered issues relating to the pandemic – the best practices related to the vaccine roll-out in Nepal, the experience of Sri Lanka with the immunization tracker and vaccine certificate, an Indian hospital chain’s experience of managing COVID-19, India’s COVID-19 vaccine story and the world’s preparedness for the next pandemic based on the learnings from the COVID-19 experience.
In addition, important but sometimes neglected public health challenges that received attention in the lecture series included air pollution and health, women’s rights in the context of 25 years of the Beijing Conference, the challenge of dengue, epilepsy control in resource-constrained settings, vitamin D deficiency, product development partnerships for TB vaccines, oral health in early childhood and integrated people-centred eye care. Lectures by international experts covered cross-cutting topics such as operational research in global health, generating quality evidence for health systems, changing understanding of health security in the post-pandemic era, new challenges for global health, the impact of science on health care and public health.
Though the Dialogue lectures are hosted in the Regional Office in New Delhi (some speakers have participated via videoconferencing), the participants are drawn not only from the Regional Office but all the country offices of WHO in the hybrid mode. Remote participation became a necessity during the pandemic but it has become a norm and has facilitated technical staff from all over to benefit from the lectures. The Dialogue series has opened a new window of learning and knowledge-sharing in the ever-changing world of public health and has helped the WHO South-East (SE) Asia Region fraternity to remain updated.
Going forward, the initiative will hopefully result in the identification of new areas of research, collaboration, partnerships and learning from best practices with the objective of health promotion as well as preparing for current and future health challenges in the Region.
