Health systems play an essential role in achieving the SDGs and universal health coverage. A health system consists of all people, institutions, resources, and activities whose primary purpose is to promote, restore, and maintain health. Health System Strengthening comprises the strategies, responses, and activities designed to sustainably improve country health system performance. The covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated the important role for health systems in securing people’s right to health through securing service delivery, the ability to respond to health emergencies and protect public health for all. "Functioning health systems – both in terms of clinical response and public health services – are essential for effective responses to pandemics and other health challenges in all parts of the world" (The Lancet Covid-19 Commission).
"The Lancet Global Health Commission on high quality health systems in the SDG Era" underscores that high-quality health systems should be informed by four values - being equitable, resilient, efficient, and for the people. The pandemic showed the inability of health systems to guarantee that equity and rights to health were ensured throughout the response, exacerbating underlying inequalities resulting in vulnerable groups being hit the hardest1. Despite success in achieving significant health results in low- and middle-income countries, Global health initiatives fail in shifting the pendulum towards more integrated approaches of vertical programmes needed to strengthen health systems.
Global Health Norway invites to a conference to address components and issues essential to strengthening health systems in an inclusive, resilient, and equitable manner. We aim for the sessions to facilitate reflections and learning from the pandemic on how to overcome the challenges and to prepare the global health community to build resilient health systems in the future.
The conference is organized by the Centre of Global Health at the Sustainable Health Unit at the University of Oslo and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health on behalf of Global Health Norway.
This event will be recorded and streamed on the Norwegian event page.
If you are joining the event in person, you need to sign up.
Program
| Title | Speaker |
|---|---|
| 8:30 Registration and coffee | |
| 9:00 Welcome and introduction | |
| Conference Chair |
Head, Centre for Global Health, SUSTAINT, University of Oslo (UiO) |
| Welcome on behalf of the University of Oslo |
Dean, Faculty of Medicine, UiO |
| Welcome on behalf of Global Health Norway |
Chair Of The Board Global Health Norway, Scientific Director of Global Health (acting), Norwegian Institute of Public Health |
|
9:10 Governance in, and, for global health |
|
| Moderator |
Leader, Department for Human Development, Section for Global Health, Norad |
| Inequity and health systems strengthening |
Former Minister of Health, Guinea Bissau, Managing Director, Women in Global Health |
| The political origins of health inequity-what’s next? |
Professor, UiO |
| Governance in global health |
Executive Director, PMNCH |
| Discussion, Q&A | |
| 10:10 Coffee Break | |
| 10:30 Reorienting Global Health, first session | |
| Moderator |
Global Health Ambassador, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway |
| Pandemics, health diplomacy and peace building |
Professor, UiO |
| A systems view – drug shortage as a case |
Professor, Norwegian Business School (BI) |
| Priority setting for health an economic perspective |
Associate Professor, UiO, Norwegian Institute of Public Health |
| Discussion, Q&A | |
| 11:25 Reorienting Global Health, second session | |
| Moderator |
Global Health Ambassador, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway |
| Peaceful societies through health and gender equity |
Postdoctor, Stockholm University, Sweden |
| Fairness and equity in global health, an ethical perspective |
Professor, UiO |
|
Discussion, Q&A |
|
|
12:00 Lunch |
|
|
13:00 Breakout Sessions Session 1a: Resilient Primary Health Care as the foundation for UHC: Chair Paul Fife, Norad. Read more about session 1a here (pdf). |
|
| 15:00 Coffee Break | |
| 15:30 Plenary Session | |
| Moderator |
Head, Centre for Global Health, SUSTAINT, University of Oslo (UiO) |
| 15:35 Paradigm shift in the research and education agenda in global Health, first session | |
| Moderator |
Norwegian Institute of Public Health |
| Inequality in Covid -19 mortality: Defining a global research agenda |
Professor, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) |
| Migration and Health: Time for a new research agenda |
Professor, University of Bergen (UiB) |
| Discussion, Q&A | |
| 16:10 Paradigm shift in the research and education agenda in global Health, second session | |
| Moderator |
Norwegian Institute of Public Health |
| Decolonization in Nordic global health education |
Researcher, Tampere University |
| Teaching sustainable Health care through the critical medical humanities |
Professor, UiO |
| Discussion, Q&A | |
| 16:45 Concluding Remarks | |
