The collaboration between UNITE and Universidad Austral from Buenos Aires, started in 2021, with an introductory class presenting UNITE as an organization and the main challenges in the field of global health, and was later on enriched with a MoU agreement, that made the already flourishing collaboration grow. This experience paved the way for UNITEs collaboration with academia in the region but also globally. It deeply involved UNITE parliamentarians and allowed a rich exchange of knowledge and experience with academics and students.
This alliance between academia and a parliamentary platform allows learning from policymakers experienced in Global Health, who know the importance of local solutions, as highlighted by Juan de Dios Cincunegui.
“Universidad Austral's experience with UNITE was amazing, and that was for many reasons. First and foremost, UNITE, although a young network, has developed exceptionally well and is now at the forefront of promoting solutions to major global health-related challenges. The alliance between academia and the parliamentary platform works very well.”
Juan de Dios Cincunegui added that “We all know that global challenges require local solutions, and we train our students with the idea that they can achieve concrete results in their countries. For the university it is very significant to have in UNITE a true partner linked to the training of our postgraduate students, it is for us a virtuous and very rich alliance, which we want to continue and expand.
[EN]
— UNITE Parliamentarians Network for Global Health (@UNITE_MPNetwork) October 19, 2022
📌 UNITE and @UnivAustral signed an agreement that aims at promoting the connection between #academia and #policymakers with the creation of specific courses
🤝 We thank the Universidad Austral for the commitment and we look forward to starting this partnership pic.twitter.com/LUUvOj6pX6
On the 18th of October 2022, Universidad Austral from Buenos Aires, represented by Dr. Juan de Dios Cincunegui and UNITE Parliamentarians Network for Global Health, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
“Our core mission at UNITE is to promote the implementation of efficient and sustainable global health policies through empowerment of parliamentarians and relevant stakeholders across nations and regions, ensuring that no one is left behind.”
This MoU defined a collaboration between both parties for a series of classes aimed at policymakers and their staff, government officials and civil society organizations in the health sector in Latin America and the Caribbean.
“This is the first concrete experience of collaboration between our network of parliamentarians and a renowned academic institution in Latin America. I believe that this MoU allowed us to grow, to expand the horizon of what we could do as a parliamentary network and to offer members of the network innovative spaces where they could make their voices heard, such as an executive course and a module in a university diploma course.”
The Chapter Chair for the Latin America region added that on the student’s perspective, it allowed the parliamentarians from all over the continent and their teams to receive “up-to-date and evidence-based information on global health challenges, such as the digital transformation of health, the Pandemic Accord, and the role of legislators in international forums, among others.”
On October 28th and 29th of the same year, the first classes given by UNITE parliamentarians were given, in the context of the International Diploma in Parliamentary Diplomacy of the Austral University.
Both Hon. Marta Bravo Salinas from Chile and Hon. Éctor Jaime Ramírez Barba from Mexico lectured in these classes.
Starting on May 16th 2023, UNITE led an Executive Course on “Challenges of Global Health: a parliamentary perspective”. It was lectured by key experts from Latin America and Europe on global health topics, which aimed at giving tools and concepts to complement the daily action of policymakers. UNITE President and founder Ricardo Baptista Leite opened the classes with the first segment. The team that delivered the different classes was composed by esteemed UNITE’s Global Board members and members of the network, Hon. Mariam Jashi, Hon. Gisela Scaglia, Hon. Andrew Ullman, Hon. Éctor Jaime Ramírez Barba, Hon. Saraí Núñez Cerón, and Hon. Andrea Alvarez Marín, joined by president and founder of UNITE, Dr. Ricardo Baptista Leite. Esteemed members of Academia joined in lecturing this course, Dr. Juan de Dios Cincunegui and Dr. Guillermina Pieroni.
On her experience, Hon. Mariam Jashi, who lectured both in the executive course and on the module, considers that “UNITE and Austral University provide a unique capacity building platform for Parliamentarians and executive government leaders to explore the fundamentals of Global Health, and how health policy solutions locally can contribute to our collective international efforts for attaining health-related Sustainable Development Goals.
“The Global Health classes that I had the honor to lead for Members of Parliaments and governments across the countries of Latin America were truly inspiring. During the classes we discussed unmet needs in Universal Health Coverage and specific health programs (e.g., mental health), and potential policy solutions at legislative and executive levels within and across the countries.”
Hon. Mariam Jashi added that “the Global Health classes that I had the honor to lead for Members of Parliaments and governments across the countries of Latin America were truly inspiring. During the classes we discussed unmet needs in Universal Health Coverage and specific health programs (e.g., mental health), and potential policy solutions at legislative and executive levels within and across the countries.”
After seven successful classes, UNITE finally coordinated the third module of the ‘International Diploma in Parliamentary Diplomacy’, which was held on the 27th and 28th of October 2023. This module was aimed at parliamentarians and staff and focused on Digital Health and challenges in Global Health. The classes were delivered by a team of experts from Transform Health, and the Health Observatory from the Buenos Aires University Law School, represented by Beatrice Okech and Marisa Aizenberg, and, as said before, by Hon. Mariam Jashi, and Eléonor Silva, UNITE’s Executive Director at the time.
Ms. Eléonor Silva, who lectured one class on the module, described that “Being part of a module on global health for a Latin American audience as a speaker was a very rich experience, with a wide range of students bringing complementary experiences and expertise to the course. The class was dynamic and participative, we discussed and outlined together the specificalities the LATAM region can bring to global health conversations worldwide.
“The collaboration with Universidad Austral was an important step towards reaching our goal to bring evidence-based solutions for policymakers to tackle global health challenges in the region. It was our first official collaboration with a university, and it is now a model we aim to follow in all our regions of intervention.”
After the fruitful partnership between UNITE and Universidad Austral of Buenos Aires, the network is keen to further expand its collaboration with academia in different regions. Therefore, UNITE aims to continue collaborating and working alongside strategic academia partners, for the purpose of leading the development of evidence-based policies.
Dr. Ricardo Baptista Leite highlighted that “Our partnership with the Austral University is to me one of the most valuable demonstrations of the essence and impact of the work we are committed to do in the field of Global Health: sharing knowledge, fostering discussion and enhancing capabilities”.
