Why an open-source manifesto for investment in global health workers?

The global immunization community is now focused on “the big catch-up”, dealing with recovery of immunization services from the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, as countries – and immunization staff on the frontlines – work toward the goals of Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030).

• At the Seventy-Fourth World Health Assembly, the Director General of the World Health Organization had called for “a broad social movement for immunization that will ensure that immunization remains high on global and regional health agendas and help to generate a groundswell of support or social movement for immunization”;
• A Movement is larger than any one individual or organization. The Geneva Learning Foundation is one of many working to support this Movement. In March 2022, we launched a call for immunization staff at all levels of the health system to connect across boundaries of geography and to commit to working together to achieve the goals of Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030). In 2022, over 10,000 health professionals, primarily government workers from districts and facilities, joined this Movement and shared ideas and practices, analyzed root causes of their local immunization challenges, and developed and implemented corrective actions to tackle them, together.

How is version 2.0 different from 1.0?

Today, we share a second draft of an open-source Manifesto for investment in global health workers which draws on experiences and opinions shared voluntarily by more than 1000 health workers.

• By ‘open source’ we mean that this draft of the manifesto summarises key recurring themes and opinions shared by health workers;
• Because this involves multiple perspectives from diverse countries, the draft manifesto at times reflects multiple positions, reflecting the diversity of the health workforce and its experiences.

The purpose of the Manifesto is to give a snapshot of how a subset of health workers see the health systems in which they work, and the recurring challenges and opportunities they perceive at this potential turning point in how health systems are structured and financed following the pandemic.

The Manifesto is built on voluntary responses to the following questions shared alongside at the first draft of the manifesto in the run-up to Teach to Reach: Connect 8, on 16th June 2023:

• Why do you work for health?
• How has your work been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic?
• How have digital technologies become embedded in your daily work?
• What will help you to build and maintain trust with the communities that you serve?
• How has sharing experience with colleagues helped you in your daily work?
• How do you see the future of health work where you work?
• If you work in a humanitarian setting, what is the biggest challenge that you face to ensure every child and family is protected from vaccine-preventable diseases?

Following collation, responses were grouped by theme, and common themes identified and summarised. This version of the Manifesto will be shared back to self-selecting health workers in the run-up to Teach to Reach 9 (October 2023) to 1) elicit more specific recommendations as to what they see as next steps for inclusion in the Manifesto, and 2) gather feedback on missing areas / areas that could be strengthened.

Watch the 15 September 2023 Consultation on the draft Manifesto version 2.0