6. Global Health Diplomacy

05/11/21 • 47 min

2 Listeners

This episode of Healthy Cities in the SDG Era takes a different approach in thinking about the Sustainable Development Goals, by zooming out from a focus on specific SDGs, to talking about global health diplomacy, a process which is linked to many of the Goals.

Professor Ilona Kickbusch is the founder and chair of the Global Health Centre of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. Previously, she served as the head of the global health division of Yale University and held various positions at the World Health Organization. In 2016, Prof. Kickbusch was awarded the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in recognition of her significant contributions to shaping the field of global health with her practical and theoretical expertise. Currently, she is undertaking responsibilities in several distinguished boards and commissions such as the Lancet FT Commission Governing Health Futures – Growing up in a digital world, UHC 2030 and Global Preparedness Monitoring Board.

Dr. Srikanth Kondreddy is an Investigator at the Bruyère Research Institute, University of Ottawa, and a Senior Fellow at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Knowledge Translation and Health Technology Assessment in Health Equity, Ottawa. He also works with UN agencies and he contributes to Think 20 (T20), a policy engagement group of the G20, and has contributed to projects such as the T20 Task Force on "COVID-19 - Multidisciplinary Approaches to Complex Problems". He has research and teaching interests in global health policy, governance, and diplomacy. He is currently researching on global health governance, pandemic preparedness and response, global health security, international health regulations, and international cooperation in health.

CREDITS: This podcast is co-hosted by Dr. Erica Di Ruggiero, Director of the Centre for Global Health, and Ophelia Michaelides, Manager of the Centre for Global Health, at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, and produced by Elizabeth Loftus. Audio editing is by Anwaar Baobeid. Music is produced by Julien Fortier and Patrick May. It is made with the support of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto.

Previous Episode

5. Gender Equality

Sustainable Development Goal 5: Gender Equality, aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Its targets encompass ending all forms of discrimination against women and girls everywhere; eliminating violence against women and girls; recognizing and valuing unpaid care and domestic work; ensuring women’s participation and equal opportunities for political, economic, and public leadership; and ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights.
While the scope of inequality that SDG5 seeks to address is wide-ranging, there is a glaring omission in the very description of SDG 5: while it aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, it fails to explicitly acknowledge the inequities that gender-diverse individuals and sexual minorities experience on the basis of their social identities. Further, it does not explicitly acknowledge intersectionality, and how sexism interacts and intersects with other forms of oppression like racism, homophobia, and classism, to produce different lived experiences of inequality.
In this episode of Healthy Cities in the SDG Era, Dr. Erica Di Ruggiero speaks with two researchers that are working to improve the health and well-being of women and gender-diverse individuals with equity and intersectionality at the forefront.

Dr. Lori Ross is an Associate Professor in the Social and Behavioural Health Sciences Division of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. Lori is also the leader of the Re:searching for LGBTQ Health Team. Lori uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches in her research work, with a strong focus on integrating the principles of community-based research. Much of her research focuses on understanding the mental health and service needs of marginalized populations including lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and two-spirit (LGBTQ2S+) people, in order to improve access to services for these communities.
Sireesha Bobbili is a PhD candidate in Social and Behavioural Health Sciences at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, U of T. She formerly worked as a Project Manager at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, where she led projects focusing on improving mental health systems, both locally and abroad, to increase access for vulnerable and marginalized populations. Sireesha conducts global health research regarding mental health and substance use, violence against women, and public health policy.

Next Episode

7. Zero Hunger

Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger aims to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.
In this episode of Healthy Cities in the SDG Era, Dr. Erica Di Ruggiero will speak with two experts about the relationship between poverty and hunger, or insecure access to food, within both Canadian and global contexts. Discussions will also focus on underlying issues of systemic racism and social inequities, that lead to a disproportionate prevalence of hunger and food security amongst different social groups.
Dr. Valerie Tarasuk is a Professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences, cross-appointed to the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Her primary research focus is household food insecurity. She has led several tri-council research grants to elucidate the scope, nature, and health implications of this problem in Canada, assess the effectiveness of community responses, and determine how public policies and programs impact food insecurity prevalence and severity. In 2011, she led the establishment of PROOF, an interdisciplinary research program working to identify effective policy approaches and mobilize knowledge to reduce household food insecurity in Canada.
Allison Daniel is a PhD Candidate in Nutritional Sciences (in the Faculty of Medicine) and a student in the Collaborative Specialization in Global Health. Her research focuses on children with severe acute malnutrition requiring inpatient admission in Blantyre, Malawi. More specifically, she is interested in the pathways from maternal factors and care practices to child outcomes including development and nutritional status in severely malnourished children.

Healthy Cities in the SDG Era - 6. Global Health Diplomacy

Transcript

Ophelia Michaelides [00:00:07] I'm Ophelia Michaelides and this is Healthy Cities in the SDG era, a podcast about the Sustainable Development Goals and how research conducted by faculty and students at the University of Toronto is helping to achieve them. In this episode, we're excited to take a different approach to thinking about the Sustainable Development Goals by zooming out from a focus on specific SDGs to talking about global health diplomacy, a process which is linked