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Dec 21, 2024, 11:18

Jérôme Salomon: President Macron, WHO Director-General and global health leaders inaugurate WHO Academy

Jérôme Salomon, Assistant Director General ADG SDG at the World Health Organization, shared on LinkedIn:

“President Emmanuel Macron, World Health Organization Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and global health leaders inaugurate WHO Academy in Lyon, France
The Academy opened its doors with a high-profile inauguration ceremony. The event was attended by WHO DG, French President, alongside dozens of health ministers, international representatives, donors, and local French partners

The WHO Academy is a revolutionary project which will contribute to a better trained health workforce around the world, through the most ambitious lifelong training programme ever designed in the field of public health. More concretely, through trainings delivered in Lyon and everywhere in the world on its online platform, it will give access to the critical skills and competencies as well as to the latest knowledge and know-how in terms of public health to health professionals, policy-makers, and WHO’s own workforce

Thanks to partnerships built with the best academic and research institutes in publichealth around the globe, the WHO Academy intends to address identified weaknesses in health systems – the first of which being the growing global shortage of health and care workers, projected to reach 10 million by 2030, but also the widening gap in terms of access to the latest research and innovation

The majority of this shortfall will be felt in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in Africa. With the view to build and share access to the most advanced technology for health and care and research and development in the field of health, including AI, the Academy will bring additional capacity and efficiency directly to health systems

Launched seven years ago, this pioneering initiative has been made possible through generous support from the Gouvernement of France, the Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Ville de Lyon City and Métropole de Lyon and other global partners

The WHO Academy’s new state-of-the-art campus spans 11 000 square meters and includes: twenty-two training rooms, two distance-learning rooms, a simulation centre, an emergency operations centre, a TV recording studio, a modern auditorium and a library

The Academy also has an online learning platform that democratizes access to world-class health education. This platform features free, cutting-edge courses on priority health topics, ensuring that professionals across the globe can access high-quality training, regardless of their location.

The shortage of health-care workers is one of the greatest challenges to global health. It has left millions without access to essential health-care services, such as immunization, maternal care, treatment for communicable diseases CDs, and more

Through the WHO Academy, thousands of health professionals will be trained each year.”

Additional information.