April 28, 2026
At the end of last week, I attended Skoll Forum side events in Oxford.
I had many great conversations, and even an uplifting singalong at the end of one event (apparently it’s on Instagram 👀).
As always, it’s action that really counts, so what were some of the practical takeaways for us in global health? For sure, a recognition it’s been a challenging past year, but there was also renewed energy to deliver alongside the communities we support. There were three key areas that resonated:
The Climate + Health challenge for communities
This is an ever-increasing, intertwined threat for communities. Extreme heat in particular is an urgent threat in maternal health.
The Degrees of Changes session run by Project Dandelion Ronda Carnegie, Wellcome Trust & Kite Insights was both heartbreaking – stories of pregnant women forced to work in dangerously high temperatures, with devastating consequences – but also energising, with diverse actors committing to the system-wide approach needed to protect women through:
🤝 Community infrastructure (e.g. cooling centres)
🤝 Labour protections (e.g. safe working conditions)
🤝 Preventative healthcare – very much in our own Foundation’s wheelhouse – reaching pregnant women at home with ANC, identifying heat-related risks through AI and intervening early.
Measuring what really matters for communities
This was a stimulating event organised by Greenwood Place on Measuring What Matters moderated by Rebecca Eastmond. It dug into impact and the reality that real-world systems (and impact) are messy.
Tom Adams highlighted a simple but essential guiding principle we must not lose sight of – measurement should focus on what materially matters to a statistically meaningful sample of people in the communities you support, and how you improve this, both now and over the long term.
I also loved Atti Worku‘s call for a greater focus on what you want to learn vs what you want to prove in measurement… lasting impact necessitates continuous learning and improvement.
It was great to catch up with Naomi Nyanchama at Dandelion Africa, one of our partners, at this session.
Innovative finance that catalyses and sustains community impact
Unsurprisingly, financing models were a common topic, particularly the role of blended finance. I was super interested to hear speakers at a Reimagining Financing for Women’s Health event, such as Sana Ali Mustafa at Equality Fund talk about how philanthropic, investment, and government capital can be leveraged together to catalyse AND sustain new systems and services for communities.
There was a strong emphasis on philanthropy’s role in de-risking new innovation and moving more quickly and flexibly to address urgent or emerging needs on the ground – yes, yes, and yes!
Rich Bryson, CEO, Spirit Health Foundation
