Dr. Priya Nanda

Women on the Frontlines: An Undervalued and Unprotected Workforce

Led by: WomenLift Health.

Women are the backbone of every successful health workforce and health initiative. They make up 70% of the global workforce and 90% of frontline healthcare workers (HCWs), yet they are overburdened, underpaid, unsupported and unprotected in the workplace. According to the Community Health Impact Coalition, 50% community frontline workers in LMICs, and 86% in Africa, are not salaried. Country policies and frameworks on the incentive-based or volunteer labor of frontline workers are compounded by donor-funded primary care programs that support delivering healthcare through unpaid labor as an acceptable mechanism to enable access to care and achieve universal healthcare coverage, thus perpetuating forms of structural violence. In most LMIC’s there is no legal/policy framework specifically designed to protect frontline health workers. The leadership and power structures frontline HCWs report to are still predominantly male. According to the #HealthToo report by Women in Global Health, which analyzed women’s stories from 40 countries, women face blatant harassment and assault in the workplace. Failing to value, promote, pay or protect frontline workers impacts retention and quality of service delivery and ultimately negatively impacts the health system.

This panel brings together Alumnae from the Leadership Journey and women working on the issues of the frontline women workforce. The session will outline the current state of women on the frontlines in low-resource countries, with particular emphasis on Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa’s community health workforce. We will discuss the critical need to build leadership among women while simultaneously working to shift gender-based social perceptions and power dynamics and address issues of pay and protection. Panelists will share specific country examples which have been undertaken to understand and address these inequities, discuss challenges, and opportunities for donors, advocacy groups, and ministries of health to support a shift to a more empowered, safe, and fairly paid frontline workforce.

Moderator: Ms. Lanice C. Williams, Independent Consultant; Chair, Women in Global Health Washington, DC Chapter

Panelists
1. Samara Andrade - Vice President, Program Strategy and Partnerships, HCP CureBlindness/SightLife international
2. Dr. Sanjana Mohan, Director, Basic Healthcare Services
3. Dr. Choolwe Jacobs, Lead for Women in Global Health Zambia Chapter
4. Dr. Priya Nanda, Independent Consultant, Gender, SRHR, and Women’s Economic Empowerment

Reimagining Leadership in Global Health: What’s Power got to do with it?

Led by: WomenLift Health.

Globally, the emerging discourse on women’s leadership is around redefining narratives and cultures of power grounded in equality and justice. Power has often been considered as a binary, masculine, often synonymous with men in opposition to those who don't hold it, largely women. On the contrary power is not a binary; in fact, it is multi-layered and complex. Incorporated within power are ideas of access to money, people, spaces, and information. Discussions of reimagining leadership in the context of power prompts us to think about the complexity of redistributing power and creating more dissonance in who has access and under what conditions.

This session will convene leaders from organizations that have been walking the talk- of shifting power and creating models of shared leadership with a vision to democratize and achieve higher and sustainable impact. We believe the conversation of reimagining leadership needs to be pegged to important discussions around redistributing power. We want to bring an honest conversation about what it takes to shift power to reimagine leadership as we know it, between those who have reimagined leadership and practiced it in their institutions and participants at the WLH Conference.

The panel will explore these questions: How are organizations restructuring and redistributing assets and opportunities to develop shared leadership models? What does it mean to identify meaningful, contextual objectives for reimagining leadership, and have they been able to allocate resources to achieve these objectives? What are some of the expected outcomes of the process of shifting power, and how effectively are these achieved? What is the role of traditional “HQs” in localization processes? What does localization mean to the diverse stakeholders who are experiencing the change? How do roles and relationships change? What are some of the reflections of this process amongst those who have tried to shift power?

Panelists
1. Ms. Benter Owour: IPAS Global Network Advisor, Uganda
2. Gunjan Veda, Global Secretary, The Movement for Community-led Development, USA
3. Ms. Joanna Mbakulo: Uganda Country Coordinator, Movement for Community Led Development (MCLD), Uganda
4. Ms. Evelyne Opondo, Director, ICRW Africa, Kenya
5. Dr. Norah Obudho, East Africa Director, WomenLift Health, Kenya

Curators
1. Sia Nowrojee, Senior Director, Girls & Women Strategy, United Nations Foundation, USA/KENYA, WLH NA 2020
2. Dr Nandini Oomman, CEO, Samya Ventures, USA/INDIA WLH NA 2020
3. Dr Priya Nanda: Global Health Research and Evaluation Specialist, INDIA, WLH INDIA 2021