Round table: International capacity building to boost public health: Can we join forces and share know-how?
Authors:   Organised by: University of Southern Denmark, Babes Bolyai University, Romania Chair persons: Arja Aro - Denmark, Razvan M Chereches - Romania
Published: November 2019

Abstract

Background
European Universities are increasingly running or participating in capacity building in higher education in non-EU countries. These projects are funded by EC, US National Institutes of Health (NIH), governments, universities or private sector. Capacity building provides a way to build global bridges between public health communities; it increases cultural understanding, develops resources in the neighboring countries and prevents public health problems spreading to Europe. For the collaborating countries it empowers communities and enhances equity and solidarity. To pool together the expertise and lessons learnt by the universities delivering this kind of education, a roundtable discussion at EUPHA offers a good forum.

Aim
To create a forum where public health academics, adult pedagogic experts, policymakers and practitioners gather to share experiences, interests and ideas for potential collaboration to facilitate the export of public health training across countries and cultures. Based on this, the round table will increase sharing knowledge and transparency of results of international capacity building interventions and will contribute to the transcultural fertilization of the interventions, with a special focus on solidarity in health. We will present specific ways of how to do knowhow transfer from EU countries to some other parts of the world (Northern Africa, Arabian Peninsula and the Caucasus region).

Program
An introduction to the roundtable is given by Professor of Public Health Arja R Aro (SDU, Denmark). She will describe recent developments and multiple lines of funding options for international capacity building projects. Professor Razvan Chereches (BBU, Romania) will talk on the lessons learned in an ongoing public health capacity building project among medical faculty staff funded by EC Erasmus+ program in Tunisia. Dr Diana Dulf will present the lessons learned in capacity building projects funded by NIH in Armenia and Georgia in the area of injury prevention. Arja R Aro will tell about the recent and ongoing knowledge transfer and education export projects among undergraduates and health professionals in Saudi Arabia funded by local universities. Pedagogical expert Anne Leena Ikonen will reflect on the pedagogic challenges in capacity building across cultures, using the Saudi Arabian context as an example. After that the panel will discuss the main lessons learnt and challenges encountered, and the audience is invited to ask questions, to share their experiences and interests. The roundtable will finish by discussing options to get organized as a network or interest group around international capacity building in public health, potentially under EUPHA.

Key messages
Pooling lessons learnt will help towards better and cost-effective planning of the future training. Network or interest group can offer a platform for collaboration and enhancement of European public health training and export.