The Challenge for the Workshop was ‘to engage a diverse set of participants in the further exploration of the challenge we have set out for ourselves (linking climate and health to reduce Africa’s infectious disease burden) and in designing collaborative actions that will improve our response to this burden’.
As reported in Progress Report #1 our Working Proposition was revised on the basis of the feedback from the Challenge Dialogue, as:
Links among climate and human health and animal health are significant. A changing and more variable climate poses increasing risks to human health and well being. For example, rising temperatures are expected to lead to an expansion of the range, incidence and impact of many infectious diseases. We expect that climate and health specialists across Africa can improve their effectiveness through better collaboration and that collaboration across these communities can improve Africa’s capacity to predict, prevent and mitigate the impacts of climate-sensitive infectious diseases, largely by dramatically improving early warning and response times.
The 50 or so workshop participants, from all over the world and from a broad range of disciplines and experiences, reinforced the validity of this working proposition through their discussions of several case studies, including malaria, bird flu and Rift Valley Fever, that exemplified the need for strong linkages and better communication between communities, climate/environmental, human and animal health researchers and practitioners if we are to improve responses to infectious diseases in Africa.
The presentations and participants’ comments are on this blog. In addition to networking and relationship building, we started out with 3 objectives for the Workshop. They are closely aligned with the revised Expected Outcomes in the Progress Report. In addition to further exploration of this complex challenge, the group was challenged to start to identify some concrete actions aimed at improving our ability to respond to climate sensitive infectious diseases across Africa and further develop:
1. Common Conceptual Frameworks for a Shared Vision and Collaboration – to develop a draft framework(s) that portrays an integrated, holistic and interdisciplinary view of climate, infectious diseases, human health, animal health and disease vectors.
2. Collaborative Project Opportunities – to identify and develop opportunities for collaborative projects and initiatives that in particular can apply and leverage multi-inter-disciplinary expertise, knowledge, tools and resources.
3. Networks and Communities of Practice – to explore and design ways in which the participants and their organizations might form informal, self-forming networks where people with shared interests and values can come together and interact for various purposes (e.g., collaborative project support teams, knowledge alliances, learning communities, shared resource opportunities, etc.)
During the workshop, several other action areas were proposed, including:
- Data, information, tools and knowledge management - we need to be able to ‘cross-query’ the data we’re collecting!
- Taking stock: existing initiatives, data, models, capacity and gaps
- Bridging gaps between community needs for information and what knowledge scientists are generating; make indigenous knowledge available and used!
- A flagship collaborative project for this group – e.g. initiative supporting African ‘one-health’ PhD’s
- A declaration/accord – one page that articulates this group’s understanding and strategic intent to move forward
We have already made progress on many of these objectives – e.g. we have several conceptual frameworks that are being refined after receiving feedback from the workshop group; we have started a list of organizations and initiatives involved in climate and health issues across Africa; we have put together an annotated bibliography and compilation of key documents.
We had stimulating examples of the role technologies can play in improving knowledge and response to diseases – the Digital Villages being established across Kenya by Virtual City; how Google Earth and other Google applications can improve communication, networking and visual presentation of things like climate change (picture a Minister watching a 3-D map and seeing parts of his country turn from yellow to orange to red over the next 50 years as average temperatures or variability in rainfall increase; or a map showing where the poor are with where the health facilities or water sources are found); and how Health Map is already showing disease outbreaks globally in real time. We learned how outcome mapping is a powerful tool for showing how outcomes in one sector are linked to outcomes in other sectors, and can inform strategies for change towards ambitious goals such as the one we’ve set ourselves. We saw how a highly collaborative effort on surveillance, forecasting, preparedness and response to malaria is working in southern Africa, providing evidence of our hypothesis that improved collaboration and integrated approaches make a difference. And while we were cautioned by our community leaders on concerns regarding language (e.g. making the results and implications of climate models more easily understandable) and poor infrastructure, a memorable moment came when Mary Nakirya (BROSDI) described a rural woman in Uganda googling ‘cabbages + Kampala’!
The organizing committee is now synthesizing the numerous ideas that came up during the workshop in the other areas and will be posting and sending out a second Progress Report within the next few weeks.
So, our journey continues....
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