In a time of immense global challenges and uncertainty, global health leaders Desiree LaBeaud and Anna Stewart-Ibarra insist on joy: joy that comes from close human connection and aligning your values with your work.
LaBeaud, Stanford’s associate dean of global health at the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health and professor of pediatrics and professor of pediatrics, and Stewart-Ibarra, executive director of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research, met through a collaborative research project investigating climate’s impact on dengue virus in Kenya and Ecuador. They quickly connected.
“From the beginning, we worked together as scientists from a space of openness, learning from each other, and a desire to collaborate and engage respectfully with people from different cultures and countries with whom we were working,” said Stewart-Ibarra.
So, when Stewart-Ibarra was invited to write a book about global health partnerships at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, she invited LaBeaud to join her. They embarked on a five-year collaboration that brought together 90 authors across 26 countries to share case studies and reflections examining the past, present, and future of global health partnerships.
Their book, Transforming Global Health Partnerships (free online through Springer), offers a new framework and paradigm for collaborative, equitable partnerships built on trust and sustained by the joy of close human connection. Such collaborations, they say, can serve as a model for addressing some of the world’s most complex and pressing challenges, from pandemics to climate change.
We discussed with them this journey and their book’s vision.
How did your experience of working together as global health researchers inform your approach to this book?
Stewart-Ibarra: Our own experiences as global health scientists, both together and separately, definitely underpinned the book. The book was informed by what we had seen – the good, the bad, and the ugly of global health. We knew we wanted to be thoughtful, reflective, and totally collaborative, and so our process evolved over the last four and a half years as our friendship deepened. We’ve both said that the process of creating the book together profoundly shaped our personal and professional trajectories.
Anna Stewart-Ibarra presenting at the Stanford Global Health Research Convening in January of 2024, where she discussed global health partnerships. | Lour Drick Valsote
The act of writing this book was itself an immense global partnership involving dozens of authors representing a range of countries, disciplines, and levels of experience. How did you approach it?
LaBeaud: We were very deliberate and intentional to ensure that we were upholding a rich interweaving of different voices – though we know some places and perspectives are still missing despite these efforts. We really wanted to also make a community, and we wanted the authors who were on different sides of the planet to get to know one another and support each other. We held Zoom meetings as one way to bring the authors together, connect, and support one another’s work.
A theme in this book is joy, which may be unexpected when considering the daunting global health challenges the world faces. What role does joy play in global health partnerships?
LaBeaud: Joy in humans comes from really authentic human connection. We experience joy together when we’re connecting on a certain level. To do that, you have to look past the tasks and the deadlines, the grants and the papers, and actually focus on your connections with your partners and that co-created vision you’re working toward together. Those connections can really catalyze, fuel, and sustain the work that needs to be done.
How can universities and funders support the more equitable global health partnerships you envision?
Stewart-Ibarra: In my work, I’ve heard governments across the Americas saying that science focused on diverse partnerships and driven by local context is a more effective way to develop effective solutions. And yet you often see funding calls from a Global North country in which the primary investigator has to be from that country. This can be hugely problematic and impact the power dynamic from the outset, so we have to think creatively about changing that.
Pushing the bar on language in funding systems is also really important. In my work, we recently launched a global funding call on tropical forests and sustainable livelihoods using AI tools that enable teams to submit proposals in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English. There’s this harmful myth that English is the language of science, and yet science is done in so many languages around the world.
In the past, lopsided power structures and inequities have impacted global health partnerships. How does your book propose transcending these historic challenges?
LaBeaud: In general, I think that people who work in global health do it for the right reasons. But the way that it’s been done hasn’t always been the most equitable. I think we’re coming into a time when the idea of someone from the rich North needing to come and fill a deficit of knowledge in the Global South is falling away and heavily criticized. We know that solutions come from those affected by the issue at hand – but that research resources aren’t fairly distributed. We’re uplifting partnerships that recognize and seek to rectify power imbalances while prioritizing the needs and perspectives of people on the ground. Perhaps most importantly, we’re advocating for centering trust, equity, and good communication in global health partnerships.
Stewart-Ibarra: We are pushing a new scientific paradigm that values diverse ways of knowing and producing knowledge beyond Western science. To do that requires, from the very beginning, a deep respect and knowledge about how we partner, whose knowledge is valued, whose interests are also valued, who sets the priorities, who asks the research questions, and who’s at the table. This is a very different way of doing science. Our hope is that this book is broadly relevant beyond the field of global health to others working to address questions about global inequalities and the global planetary health crisis that we’re living.
Media contacts
Jamie Hansen, Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health: (707) 791-0520
Desiree LaBeaud, Associate Dean of Global Health and Professor of Pediatrics–Infectious Diseases: dlabeaud@stanford.edu
Anna Stewart-Ibarra, Executive Director of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research: anna.stewart@dir.iai.int