Workshop 2/15-17: Pacific Health Governance: Knowledge Translation for SDG Implementation

Abt Associates is co-hosting a collaborative event to invigorate a new health research community in Australia and the Pacific Islands region to begin activities to implement the UN sustainable development agenda.

Thursday, February 15, 2018 – Saturday, February 17, 2018

This unconventional workshop – the first in a series – is designed to broker networks and partnerships for research and innovation for health in the region. To achieve a diversity of views, workshop organizers sought funding for travel scholarships to bring Pacific voices, scholars and practitioners to the event to construct research agendas that are Pacific-driven, respond to needs, and create agendas for joint research and action.

The event, entitled the “Pacific Health Governance: Knowledge Translation for SDG Implementation,” will be held from Feb. 15-17. The workshop, which Abt Associates experts will help facilitate, will focus on four themes:

Theme 1: Health and Security and the Region: Pandemics, biosecurity, preparedness, International Health Regulations, gender-based violence, trauma and poverty, emergencies and catastrophic events;
Theme 2: Health Systems and Universal Health: Workforce, training, mobility and health seeking, urban health, coverage and capacities, health rights;
Theme 3: Climate Change and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: Analyses of fresh water, sanitation, zoonotic disease, One Health, climate change and threats to health, health security, climate change and mobility; and
Theme 4: Non-Communicable Disease: Trade and health, food security, access to medicines, cancer, mental health, unhealthy commodities.

Each of the four workshop themes is co-led, pairing Pacific Island researchers and practitioners with Australian experts. The use of a modified talanoa – a method of engagement through the respectful sharing of truths in communal dialogue – during the thematic streams means that there will be many opportunities to hear from those who have traveled from the Pacific island region to share their knowledge and experience.

Who: Mark Power, head of Australian programs and knowledge management, Abt Associates
Dr. Gavin Macgregor-Skinner, senior global health security advisor and principal associate, Abt Associates
Where: The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
When: Feb. 15-17

For more information about the workshop, visit the event page.
Read about Abt’s efforts in Governance.