2022: The Year of Action
9 January 2023
Dear Women in Global Health community,
As December comes to an end, I want to thank you for being with us this year and invite you to join us as we celebrate the impact of Women in Global Health (WGH) in 2022. As in-person meetings resumed, this year was one of WGH’s most active and influential years. This year marked a major landmark with the first in-person Peer-to-Peer meeting of our global movement in Nairobi, Kenya, supported by our partner Amref. Representatives from 41 national WGH chapters met together with the global staff team to vision future strategy for the WGH movement. The meeting was a major step forward and an inspiring moment for a virtual movement such as ours. As we stand back and take stock following a year of campaigning, evidence gathering, and influencing for gender equity in health, our fast-growing movement and staff team have much to be proud of. Please take a look at our key highlights from 2022, drawn from many achievements, listed in the timeline below.
We kicked off the year proud to be accepted as a Non-State Actor in Official Relations with WHO, which allowed us to advocate for gender-transformative leadership in health with our first historic delegation to the World Health Assembly; 17 outstanding women were recognized for their work as women leaders through the Heroines of Health awards event, held during the World Health Summit in Berlin; and only 18 months since it was launched the Gender Equal Health and Care Workforce Initiative led by France and WGH has continued to raise the need for gender equity in the health workforce and secure expressions of support —now 16 governments strong, with 8 multilateral organizations and 23 NGOs.
In 2022 we published three new reports on critical issues for women health workers: protection of women health workers with PPE designed for the needs and bodies of women; uncovering the 6 million women working unpaid and underpaid work in core health systems roles and shining a light on sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment of women health workers in their own words.
I thank Dr. Magda Robalo for her co-leadership and commitment to the WGH movement as she stepped into the role of Global Managing Director during my maternity leave. This was a great example of the power of women supporting women. I also thank all of you, the WGH team, our chapter leaders and members, our committed partners, and all our supporters for joining us this year to advocate for gender equity in health. This work would not be possible without you.
As the world comes to the end of the third year of a pandemic, we acknowledge the stress on health systems and on the women who, as 70% of health workers, largely deliver our health systems. We remain deeply concerned about women leaving the profession and the impact this will have for the achievement of global health goals including Universal Health Coverage. 2022 has reminded us that women in health are drivers of change in their own spheres but are not always recognized for their professional expertise and knowledge. We have seen women losing ground in health leadership and a growing backlash against women’s rights in global policy fora and at national level in many countries. We can only make sense of the suffering and the losses of global crises if we treat them as a break in history and change the status quo. Now is the time to move forward together, push back the backlash and build back equal.
I wish you season’s greetings and a Happy New Year. Stay with us as we move into an action-packed 2023.
Dr. Roopa Dhatt,
Executive Director and Co-Founder
Women in Global Health
