Image courtesy of SCOPE, via Twitter
EVENT SUMMARY
The United States Agency for International Development’s Center for Innovation and Impact and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation hosted the second Design for Health convening in Dakar, Senegal from 10-12 April 2019. This partnership sought to advance the use of design in global health, and democratizing the process so that it is more accessible to global health practitioners at large.
Dakar is a city that inspires through design, rich culture, and historical context- for Nio Far Dakar. As the Senegalese say, Nio Far! We are on, we are together Design for Health - conceived as HCDUncut - is looking to the future. The question we now ask ourselves is: as global health evolves over the next 25 years, how can design be best positioned to be integrated within the field while accelerating human-centered innovation to improve the health of populations?
THE FIVE MISSIONS
At Nio Far Dakar, participants were asked to join a Mission team. There were five Missions, or design challenges, which directly connected to opportunity areas identified at the previous Design for Health convening. Each team explored a Mission by sharing insights from experience and through prototyping different concepts. Catalysts were facilitators embedded within the Mission teams to ensure session outcomes that fully utilized the diversity of the teams. We chose Catalysts to represent a variety of experiences, spanning the entire Design for Health spectrum.
Image courtesy of the United States Agency for International Development’s Center for Innovation and Impact, via Twitter
Identifying pathways to scale and appropriate channels for operationalizing design in global health projects.
Developing a design curriculum for global health.
Provide guidance for global health contracting to develop, evaluate, and better manage design approaches.
Articulating and demonstrating the returns of investment (ROI) for the application of design in global health.
Teaming design with other behavior change approaches in global health.
ZIP Folder
Nio Far Dakar was the second Design for Health gathering, building on the HCD Uncut gathering in Berlin in 2017. It was held at the Museum of Black Civilizations (Le Musée des Civilisations Noires) in Dakar, Senegal, from April 10-12, 2019. Design and health experts from more than 65 organizations came together to deepen engagement, outline a path for the successful integration of design in global health, and amplify impact on health outcomes and to realize our shared vision. Nio Far Dakar built on Design for Health efforts aimed at democratizing design over the last year.
Ultimately, we want to take Design from retail to wholesale, and to do that we need to start talking to new folks. Not just hte early-adopters, but begin learning from, and listening to, folks to might be sceptical, so that we can better understand how we can bring Design to them in a way that amplifies their work.
David Milestone, United States Agency for International Development's Center for Innovation and Imact
PDF PUBLICATION
This resource reviews the Design for Health journey so far and outlines four thematic areas being developed to help integrate Design and Global Health disciplines.
It’s been fascinating and unique to have a group of over one hundred folks from across the span of global health experts, implementing partners, donors and designers.” – Nikki Tyler, the United States Agency for International Development’s Center for Innovation and Impact
