It was a privilege to join the Global Surgery Foundation as an honoured speaker at their flagship side event during the 79th World Health Assembly in Geneva, What’s Next for Philanthropy: Investing in Local Leaders for Impact, held at the Hôtel InterContinental.

Building on the historic commitments made to SURGfund at WHA78 last year, this year’s conversation moved decisively from proof of concept to scale. Moderated with great precision by Ms Femi Oke and convened by GSF Executive Director Dr Geoffrey Ibbotson, the evening examined how philanthropy must pivot from the old donor-recipient model toward catalytic, locally-owned investment that de-risks innovation, builds resilient health systems, and gives Ministers of Finance the evidence they need to take programmes onto national budget lines.

I was honoured to join fellow panellists Ms Atalanti Moquette of Giving Women and Ms Daniela Picco of the MSC Foundation MSC Foundation in making that case, drawing on the Wellbeing Foundation Africa’s decades of evidence across Nigeria, our EmONC and AOSS programming in partnership with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, embedding competency-based surgical curricula and establishing Centres of Excellence, which has created a faculty pipeline that belongs entirely to Nigeria.

The midwife and the surgical team are two parts of the same chain of care, and the future of global health will be built by the local leaders who are already delivering it.

 

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