Excellencies, distinguished guests, dear colleagues and friends,
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening.
Thank you for your interest in the WHO Academy, which is a major new initiative as part of WHO’s transformation.
As you know, shortly after I took office as Director-General, I put out a call for all staff to contribute “crazy ideas” for making WHO stronger.
One of those ideas from our staff was to establish a WHO Academy.
Member States invest heavily in WHO’s normative function to produce evidence-based guidance, but that guidance doesn’t always deliver the impact it should in countries.
It’s often said that it takes an average of 10 years to implement WHO guidance.
COVID-19 has made the need for disseminating knowledge and evidence even more urgent.
So far, courses on WHO’s OpenWHO.org online learning platform have received almost 3.5 million enrolments on 12 topics in 31 languages.
So we are reaching out to millions and we have became multilingual, and this is what you have been asking for, as you remember.
This experience provides powerful proof of concept for the WHO Academy.
With the deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals now less than a decade away, only a handful of countries are on track to meet all of the health-related targets.
The WHO Academy will be an important way of addressing these challenges, by revolutionizing health learning globally, while substantially increasing professional development opportunities for WHO staff.
Our vision is a state-of-the-art school to deliver high-quality, multi-lingual learning, both on-line and in-person, alongside a cutting-edge simulation centre for health emergencies.
We aim to build one of the world’s largest and most innovative digital learning platforms to enhance the competencies of a large number of health professionals every year.
The Academy will contribute to improving the speed, efficiency and effectiveness with which information gets to health workers, and empower health workers to accelerate advancements in medical care and practices to patients and communities.
It will also be a powerful professional development tool for WHO that will help the Organization transition to a learning organization by strengthening the competencies of all staff.
The Academy will also help to strengthen the capacity of Member States by “training the trainers” in how to implement WHO’s norms and standards at country level.
By drawing on the expertise of more than 700 WHO Collaborating Centres and our unrivalled networks of specialists, the WHO Academy will bring together the world’s leading health experts to deliver unique learning opportunities.
We will engage with regulatory authorities responsible for the accreditation and recognition of education, training and regulation of professional practice in the health sector to develop an open certification scheme that recognizes lifelong learning.
The Academy campus network will be comprised of a main hub in Lyon, France and six regional learning spokes will deliver high-quality, multi-lingual, hybrid and personalized digital learning.
Last year I signed an agreement with His Excellency President Macron for the Academy to be established in Lyon, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank President Macron and France for its support and leadership. France has already allocated €100 million for the construction of the Academy.
The Academy is not a separate legal entity but an internal WHO division that will be headed by a Chief Learning Officer at the level of a WHO Assistant Director-General.
The Academy will be established through three phases: set-up, from 2019 to 2021; start-up, from 2021 to 2022; and scale-up, from 2023 to 2025.
The first courses will be available online in May next year, while the Lyon campus will open in 2023.
Of course, the training we’re providing now for COVID-19 is part of it, so we have actually accelerated the start of the Academy.
You will hear more in a few moments from my colleagues, who will provide an update on progress so far and next steps.
We welcome the engagement of all Member States in this exciting initiative, which we believe will play a crucial role in achieving our shared mission to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable, by training hundreds of millions of health workers globally. It’s a very ambitious goal, but something that can be achieved if we can do it together.
I thank you.
Excellencies, distinguished guests, dear colleagues and friends,
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening.
Thank you for your interest in the WHO Academy, which is a major new initiative as part of WHO’s transformation.
As you know, shortly after I took office as Director-General, I put out a call for all staff to contribute “crazy ideas” for making WHO stronger.
One of those ideas from our staff was to establish a WHO Academy.
Member States invest heavily in WHO’s normative function to produce evidence-based guidance, but that guidance doesn’t always deliver the impact it should in countries.
It’s often said that it takes an average of 10 years to implement WHO guidance.
COVID-19 has made the need for disseminating knowledge and evidence even more urgent.
So far, courses on WHO’s OpenWHO.org online learning platform have received almost 3.5 million enrolments on 12 topics in 31 languages.
So we are reaching out to millions and we have became multilingual, and this is what you have been asking for, as you remember.
This experience provides powerful proof of concept for the WHO Academy.
With the deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals now less than a decade away, only a handful of countries are on track to meet all of the health-related targets.
The WHO Academy will be an important way of addressing these challenges, by revolutionizing health learning globally, while substantially increasing professional development opportunities for WHO staff.
Our vision is a state-of-the-art school to deliver high-quality, multi-lingual learning, both on-line and in-person, alongside a cutting-edge simulation centre for health emergencies.
We aim to build one of the world’s largest and most innovative digital learning platforms to enhance the competencies of a large number of health professionals every year.
The Academy will contribute to improving the speed, efficiency and effectiveness with which information gets to health workers, and empower health workers to accelerate advancements in medical care and practices to patients and communities.
It will also be a powerful professional development tool for WHO that will help the Organization transition to a learning organization by strengthening the competencies of all staff.
The Academy will also help to strengthen the capacity of Member States by “training the trainers” in how to implement WHO’s norms and standards at country level.
By drawing on the expertise of more than 700 WHO Collaborating Centres and our unrivalled networks of specialists, the WHO Academy will bring together the world’s leading health experts to deliver unique learning opportunities.
We will engage with regulatory authorities responsible for the accreditation and recognition of education, training and regulation of professional practice in the health sector to develop an open certification scheme that recognizes lifelong learning.
The Academy campus network will be comprised of a main hub in Lyon, France and six regional learning spokes will deliver high-quality, multi-lingual, hybrid and personalized digital learning.
Last year I signed an agreement with His Excellency President Macron for the Academy to be established in Lyon, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank President Macron and France for its support and leadership. France has already allocated €100 million for the construction of the Academy.
The Academy is not a separate legal entity but an internal WHO division that will be headed by a Chief Learning Officer at the level of a WHO Assistant Director-General.
The Academy will be established through three phases: set-up, from 2019 to 2021; start-up, from 2021 to 2022; and scale-up, from 2023 to 2025.
The first courses will be available online in May next year, while the Lyon campus will open in 2023.
Of course, the training we’re providing now for COVID-19 is part of it, so we have actually accelerated the start of the Academy.
You will hear more in a few moments from my colleagues, who will provide an update on progress so far and next steps.
We welcome the engagement of all Member States in this exciting initiative, which we believe will play a crucial role in achieving our shared mission to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable, by training hundreds of millions of health workers globally. It’s a very ambitious goal, but something that can be achieved if we can do it together.
I thank you.