Global Health Observances: October 11-17, 2020

October 16, 2020
Global Health Observances: October 11-17, 2020

The week of October 11 to 17 commemorates a multitude of important days in global health, calling to attention ways to build more sustainable and resilient communities. These days include: 

International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction—October 13, 2020
This day promotes a global culture of risk-awareness and disaster reduction, urging communities to acknowledge weaknesses and incorporate these areas of risk into resilience plans. This year, the focus is on governance, the effectiveness of which can be measured by lives saved, reduced number of disaster-affected people, and reduced economic losses. Strategies should have a broad lens, not only focusing on floods and storms, but also multidimensional systemic risk generated by zoonotic diseases, climate shocks, and environmental breakdowns, which can lead to complex global situations such as pandemics. Complex emergencies are exacerbated by climate change, a global phenomenon driving out vulnerable populations from their homelands. To learn more about how migration, climate, and complex emergencies intersect, see GHELI’s Resource Pack on Migration and Complex Emergencies

World Food Day—October 16, 2020
This World Food Day emphasizes building sustainable solutions—incorporating benefits for farmers and workers throughout the food system—especially as nations start creating policies as part of COVID-19 recovery plans. Although we now produce more than enough food to feed everyone, our food systems are out of balance, leading to hunger, obesity, environmental degradation, loss of agro-biological diversity, food loss and waste, and lack of security for food chain workers. The importance of food as a means to achieve equity cannot be overstated. In October 2020, the World Food Programme (WFP) received the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts preventing the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict, bettering conditions for peace, and combating global hunger. To find out more about the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, peruse this report published by multiple international organizations, including WFP. 

International Day for the Eradication of Poverty—October 17, 2020
Poverty is not only an economic issue, but a multidimensional phenomenon that affects health, education, and standard of living, limiting individual freedoms. This day does not only emphasize fiscal justice, but achieving social and environmental justice for all. To learn more about multidimensional poverty, explore GHELI’s featured resource: the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index