Harvard’s Annual Global Health Symposium Highlights the Power of True Partnerships in Advancing Equity in Global Health

The Harvard Global Health Institute held its 2nd Annual Global Health Symposium on April 18th, 2024 in Cambridge, MA and virtually. Under the theme of Partnerships in Action, the full-day event featured 23 speakers from Harvard University and around the world, who were joined by more than 100 Harvard students, faculty, and staff in person, and another 800 virtual attendees spanning 90 countries. The conversations explored the meaning of true partnerships and highlighted its importance in achieving equity in global health.

Dr. Louise C. Ivers, Faculty Director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, explained that the goal of the Symposium was to provide a platform for a diversity of perspectives on the current challenges in global health. She emphasized the Institute’s mission was to engage in important conversations, scholarship, and action that will lead to positive change.

“How do we think about bidirectional exchange? How do we think about equity? How do we do this work, with equity as an outcome of what we do in this work?” she asked.

In his keynote address, Dr. David Walton, U.S. Global Malaria Coordinator of the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), offered his perspectives on “accompaniment” – partnership at the deepest level – and how PMI strived to accompany the national malaria programs in their 30 partner countries.

“At its core, accompaniment is about being present and in true partnership, with an individual or an entity,” said Dr. Walton.

In the sessions that followed, speakers and attendees exchanged ideas on the meaning of true partnerships in different areas of global health.

Dr. Vanessa Kerry, Director-General Special Envoy for Climate Change and Health of the World Health Organization and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, highlighted the need for partnership at the community level in generating solutions that address climate’s impact on health.

The panelists of the session “Reimagining Financing and Governance for Global Health” argued that structural barriers including the burden of debt, the volatility of capital flows, widespread tax evasion, and the restrictive nature of intellectual property rights, posed significant obstacles to achieving equitable and sustainable health outcomes worldwide.

Drs. Sikhulile Moyo, Director, Botswana-Harvard AIDS Institute Partnerships, Aima Ahonkhai, Director, Community-Engaged Research Program, Harvard University Center for AIDS Research, and Phuong Pham, Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, agreed that building equitable partnerships to increase knowledge exchange and access to resources for clinicians would allow them to conduct more research.

Panelists in the session “Advancing AI for Global Health” reminded the audience that while AI showed enormous potential for social good, the practical deployment of AI systems, especially in resource-limited contexts, would be challenging. Dr. Austin Demby, Minister of Health of Sierra Leone noted that the “co-creation of solutions” with partners in the global South was essential in creating context-specific and impactful tools.

The Symposium closed with a keynote address by Dr. Rocio Sáenz, former Minister of Health of Costa Rica and Executive Director of the Network of the Americas for Health Equity. Citing the COVID-19 pandemic as an example, Dr. Sáenz argued that not only was the dependence on vaccine production critical, but so was the knowledge.

“It’s very important as a global people to understand that the knowledge has a gap between the North and the South, and that the decisions [made] globally… has impact at the local communities,” said Dr. Sáenz.

The recordings of the Symposium is available on our YouTube channel.

About the Global Health Symposium

The Harvard Global Health Institute’s annual Global Health Symposium provides the opportunity for faculty, staff, and students across Harvard’s schools, institutes, centers, departments, and affiliated hospitals, as well as an international community of health professionals, academics, and civil society, to connect and engage in meaningful conversations around some of the most pressing global health issues in an inclusive hybrid experience.