Announcing the new Health Systems Global Secretariat
The Board of Health Systems Global (HSG) is pleased to announce the new home of the HSG Secretariat from January 2021. The Canadian Society for International Health (CSIH) was selected by the HSG Board following a thorough and competitive tendering process.
Speaking about the selection of CSIH, HSG Board Vice Chair, Professor Barbara McPake, who led the selection process, said:
“I am delighted on behalf of the HSG Board to be able to announce CSIH as the new home of the HSG Secretariat from 2021. CSIH brings a wealth of knowledge and skills from running an established national membership society with international reach and profile. CSIH also has experience of working with HSG, including as a local co-host of the successful Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in Vancouver in 2016, so they understand well the society, its activities, and the important role of the HSG secretariat. I and my fellow HSG Board members are excited to work with Eva Slawecki and CSIH colleagues to engage HSG members and partners in shaping and implementing a new five year strategy that meets the needs of our society and allows us to navigate a challenging and complex world.”
Chair of HSG, Professor Asha George, commented on the recruitment of CSIH and acknowledged the work of the current HSG secretariat:
“Like Barbara, I am pleased to have completed this important stage in the transition process with the outcome being a new secretariat that understands and is committed to our vision of globally connected health systems research and policy communities that contribute to the attainment of better health, equity and well-being. I also wanted to recognise the vital role that the present secretariat, the Curatio International Foundation (CIF) in Tbilisi, has played through the leadership of Executive Director, George Gotsadze. Over past five years, George and his team have made the society financially secure and organisationally more robust, enabling it to deliver on its ambitions and objectives. Thanks to them HSG not only manages its resources effectively and in a transparent and prudent way, but has also emerged with robust and responsible policies and processes. It’s a strong and sustainable platform for HSG, in partnership with CSIH, to maintain and build from for a new phase of HSG’s growth.”
Eva Slawecki, Executive Director of the Canadian Society for International Health, responded to the news of CSIH being awarded the HSG secretariat role:
“HSG’s mission and vision are well aligned with those of CSIH—therefore a natural fit for our talented team to support HSG’s institutional goals and activities as host Secretariat in a complex and shifting global health landscape. With a long history of using equity-based principles for capacity building and improving health systems, and over 25 years of experience in convening the global health community in Canada, CSIH is up to the challenge of operationalizing HSG’s mandate, and serving and supporting its membership and Board to attain its mission, vision, and strategic objectives. We are grateful to have a transition period of several months to work alongside the current Secretariat, CIF, and to learn from their tremendous experience in successfully managing HSG for the past 5 years. Thank you for trusting CSIH to take HSG forward!”
To ensure a smooth and efficient handover of secretariat functions and activities CSIH, CIF and the HSG Board are working together, along with the communications teams based at the Institute of Development Studies in the UK, to identify and take forward a series of priority areas to complete the secretariat transition and for CSIH to lead into 2021, ahead of CSIH taking on all HSG secretariat responsibilities from January 2021 through to December 2025.
Key work areas include the delivery of the latter stages of the Sixth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR2020), which runs to the end of March 2021; management of the Thematic Working Groups ‘refresh’ process in early 2021; and preparations for the Seventh Global Symposium in 2022 with the Colombian host consortium and global and regional partners.
