THE GLOBAL SOUTH E-HEALTH OBSERVATORY “CAPACITY BUILDING AND DATA SHARING FOR EFFICIENT AND SUSTAINABLE E-HEALTH”, 1ST JULY 2019

On July 1, at the annual conference of the Global South eHealth Observatory, the Fondation Pierre Fabre presented the five 2019 awards, which this year go to projects in Burkina Faso, Tanzania, India and Mongolia. 

Awarded each year at the Global South eHealth Observatory Conference, the Observatory’s awards recognize the most promising initiatives in the field of digital health in low- and middle-income countries. Their objectives are to raise the profile and support the development of projects that have significant potential to reduce inequalities in access to care.

Promoting access to care for the most disavantaged population

The widespread availability of digital technologies represents an opportunity for progress by removing geographical and financial barriers to accessing health services. The Observatory has therefore set itself the objective of contributing to the development of the most relevant projects and encouraging the reinforcement of skills and the sharing of information around e-health actions and policies.

“The 2019 event benefited from a wealth of discussions on data sharing and skills reinforcement, two major challenges in the transformation of health strategies for efficient and sustainable e-health. Everyone’s involvement is essential so that the health pyramid, which is currently being rolled out in the Global South, is reliable and of a high quality. Reinforcing skills, through training and involving everybody, is vital in the development of e-health. The five winning projects perfectly illustrate these two focuses,” explains Béatrice Garrette, Director General of the Fondation Pierre Fabre.

Each year, significant identification work carried out locally and remotely, combined with a call for applications, enables project coordinators using ICT to improve access to health to submit their initiative at www.odess.io. Once applications have been processed, the Observatory’s panel of experts votes for the most promising initiatives. Five winning initiatives will be rolled out in four countries: Burkina Faso, Mongolia, India and Tanzania. The winners benefit from technical and financial support for a year, with funding of €100,000 in total to support their development.