Page 4 - RA2019 FONDATION PIERRE FABRE GB

INTERVIEW with Béatrice Garrette Executive Director of the Fondation Pierre Fabre The Foundation celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2019: why was it important to mark this milestone with your partners working to improve healthcare in the Global South? Because we couldn’t do anything without them! Had they not been there, the event would have been meaningless. It was a unique opportunity to bring them all together and further clarify our mission and areas of intervention. Many of our partners were not aware of how broad our scope of action is, how it has expanded thematically and geographically. This celebration was our chance to reaffirm our commitments and the principles of our intervention model, to assert our shared values and recognise the importance of collaboration. What were the highlights of the Foundation’s work in 2019? One advance that represents our desire to replicate models that work is the formation of a consortium of partners to create a holistic treatment centre for victims of sexual violence in the Central African Republic, based on Dr Mukwege’s “One-stop center” model. The Agence Française de Développement (French Development Agency) is co-financing the project for four years, which is a tremendous indicator of their trust in our objectives. We have also intensified the use of teledermatology and support programmes for people with albinism, incorporating new countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The year 2019 will also be remembered as the year we launched the interuniversity eHealth degree programme on health innovation and practices in Bamako, designed to help African countries develop effective, sustainable eHealth strategies. And, of course, we closed the Master Mékong Pharma, the French Master’s programme based in Asia, and created the Mékong Pharma Network so that Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam could establish their own training curricula based on the structural work accomplished over the past six years. The Covid-19 pandemic reminds us that public health must be structurally strengthened to mitigate the consequences of such events. What is the outlook for the years to come? At the start of 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic caused upheaval in the global health agenda and clearly showed how such a health crisis challenges all our health systems. It reminds us that public health, along with every level of the health pyramid, must be structurally strengthened to mitigate the consequences of such events. The Foundation plans to pursue its strategy of scaling up intervention models that are proven effective by helping strengthen local skills, supporting university education and promoting innovation, all to make it possible for the Global South to develop solid expertise networks. Fondation Pierre Fabre – 4