Skoll | Local Solutions for Global Recovery: Taking on Climate, COVID, and Health Inequity

Interactive Workshop

Session Description

As the world responds to both the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis, we find ourselves at a crossroads. One path takes us back in the direction we came, propping up old, unjust systems that have led to this moment of compound health, ecological, social, political, and economic crises. The other path leads toward an opportunity to forge a just transition to a more equitable, resilient society that provides dignified work for all, universal health care, and a healthy climate.

Around the globe, local leaders are helping blaze this second path. As many around the world rise up against systemic racism and discrimination, a movement is emerging to forge a broad, interconnected agenda for fundamental change that fosters health equity, ecological sustainability, and social justice.

Join Health Care Without Harm and the Skoll Foundation for an enlightening and engaging interactive session open to all. In addition to hearing from a top WHO official and front-line leaders from the United States, India, and South Africa, you’ll have an opportunity to share your own ideas about the challenges and opportunities at the critical intersections of health, climate, and justice. Together, we’ll work toward a more resilient and just world.

Register to participate: space is limited.

Please note start time in your time zone: 8:00AM PDT / 11:00AM EDT / 12:00PM BRT / 4:00PM BST / 5:00PM SAST / 8:30PM IST
See event in your time zone here.

Time & Location

Time:

4:00 PM - 5:30 PM, Wednesday, September 16, 2020 BST

Location:

Speakers

Helga Garcia Garza

Speaker

Director, Agri-Cultura Network

Helga Garcia-Garza co-manages the day-to-day operations of the Agri-Cultura Network. She oversees the development of the network’s, programs and community events, which include La Cosecha and a monthly cooking class. Garcia-Garza has a long history as a community organizer and an environmental and food justice advocate. She has spent the last 30 years dedicated to community health initiatives on both sides of the U.S./Mexico region, organizing and educating communities on Right to Know Right to Act regarding water, land, and air contamination. Garcia-Garza has worked at Agri-Cultura Network member farms, and on tracking, quality control, and distribution of the network’s produce. Her latest project is a multi-million dollar state-of-the-art solar-powered facility Eco-Wellness clinic, a major real estate partnership that will centralize and expand community health and wellness resources and will include four acres of fields and three greenhouses.

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Niharika Barik Singh

Speaker

Former Secretary of Health, Government of Chhattisgarh, India

Ms.Niharika Barik Singh is an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of 1997 batch and is Former Secretary of Health, Government of Chhattisgarh. Secretary Singh has a background in Sociology and belongs to the Chhattisgarh cadre.The Health sector in Chhattisgarh has achieved some incredible feats recently under her leadership. In the year 2018-19, the State of Chhattisgarh won the first place among high-focus states category for ‘better public health care systems, innovative and exemplary work’ at the 6th National Health Summit at Gandhinagar, Gujarat. The selection was based on the following seven standardsofNITI Aayog rankings: a) district hospital operation; b) health and wellness centre; c) combating non-communicable diseases; d) mental health programme; e) human resources; f) information technology; and g) effectivevaccination programme It is under the same dynamic leadership that Surguja District has achieved the world’s highest breastfeeding rate of 87.5%. Surgujahas overtaken the central African country of Rwanda that stood at 87%.Surguja is now the role model of holistic implementation of health and nutritional care scheme for the world. She has made extensive efforts to control Malaria in the tribal dominated southern part of the State where annual parasite incidence is more than 10 in many pockets. A special drive called Malaria Mukt Bastar ( Malaria free Bastar) has been started in Jan 2020. Under “Malaria Mukt Bastar Campaign” Chhattisgarh is conducting Community based active Screening and treatment in seven districts of Bastar division to reduce Malarial parasite load in the community. In these areas, Malaria is also the main cause behind Anemia and Malnutrition in Pregnant Women & children. One of the various objectives of this door to door screening has been also to reduce IMR and MMR in the area. Campaign as of now has been implemented in Bastar Division in two phases/rounds. This is by far the most extensive campaign against malaria in this region covering round 13 lakh population in the first phase, where as in second round 23 lakhs population has been covered. Prior to her posting as the Secretary of Health, Secretary Singh has handled many assignments in the State Govt. as District Magistrate , Mahasamund; Director Technical Education; Divisional Commissioner of Bilaspur; Secretary Tourism and Culture; Secretary Rural Industries, Resident Commissioner of Chhattisgarh. She has also worked in the Govt. of India as Director in Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance and as Joint Secretary in Department of Food & Public Distribution. In addition of being a civil servant, Secretary Singh is also a wildlife enthusiast, passionate cook and an avid gardener.

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Maria Neira

Speaker

Director, Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health, World Health Organization

Dr Maria P. Neira has been directing the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health at the World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland since September 2005. Throughout her tenure and up until now she has led and advised on policy and management in key areas of environmental health. Prior to that she served as Under-Secretary of Health and President of the Spanish Food Safety Agency. From 1993-1998 she was Coordinator of the Global Task Force on Cholera Control. Dr Neira began her career as a medical coordinator working with refugees in El Salvador and Honduras for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). She then spent several years working in different African countries during armed conflicts. Born in the city of Oviedo, Asturias, Dr Neira is a Spanish national, a medical doctor by training and specialized in Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases; and Public Health. Among many distinctions, she has been awarded the Médaille de l'Ordre national du Mérite by the Government of France and received an “Extraordinary Woman” award by HM Queen Letizia of Spain. In early 2019, she was nominated among the top 100 policy influencers in health and climate change.

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Laetitia Rispel

Speaker

South African Research Chair on the Health Workforce & Immediate Past President of the World Federation of Public Health Associations, University of the Witwatersrand

Laetitia Rispel is Professor of Public Health and a chair holder of the South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI), entitled Research on the Health Workforce for Equity and Quality, at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has received several national and international awards in recognition of her research and/or health activism. In June 2020, she completed her term as the President of the World Federation of Public Health Associations, the first woman from Africa, and the third in the more than 50-year history of the organisation to achieve this honour.

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Gary Cohen

Moderator

President, Health Care Without Harm

Gary Cohen has been a pioneer in the environmental health movement for thirty eight years. He has helped build coalitions and networks globally to address the environmental health impacts related to toxic chemical exposure and climate change. Gary is Co-Founder and President of Health Care Without Harm (www.noharm.org), and Practice Greenhealth (www.practicegreenhealth.org). Both organizations were created to help transform the health care sector to be environmentally sustainable and anchor institutions to support environmental health and resilience in the communities they serve. In 2013, he was awarded the Champion of Change Award for Climate Change and Public Health by the White House. In 2015, Cohen was named a MacArthur Fellow and was a recipient of a “genius” grant from the MacArthur Foundation.

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