The Joint Learning Network (JLN) Digital Health Collaborative’s second collaborative-wide meeting was held on December 2 – 4, 2024, in Nairobi, Kenya with participation from members from 15 countries: Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Senegal, Tajikistan, Ukraine in-person and virtually. Special guests joined from Bosnia and Herzegovina and South Sudan, along with those from digital health regional networks, namely RECAINSA and AeHIN. The meeting was co-located with the Global Digital Health Forum to allow JLN participants to join the Forum (December 4 – 6).
This meeting of the Collaborative built on the progress among collaborative participants since the collaborative launch meeting held in Jakarta, Indonesia, and the subsequent authors’ workshop held in Washington, DC. During the launch meeting, collaborative members agreed to co-develop five knowledge products:
- A how-to guide on interoperability
- A how-to toolkit for digital health governance
- An annotated inventory of resources
- A guide on private sector solutions
- An orientation, evidence, and dialogue toolkit on making the case for investing in digital health.
At the authors’ workshop and subsequent virtual engagements, a group of country author representatives worked intensively on the co-development of the first three knowledge products listed above. At this second collaborative meeting, the draft guide on digital health governance was shared and discussed with the full collaborative membership for a final round of feedback and inputs before finalization, along with a demo of the AI-enabled inventory of resources (the Digital Health Companion). Participants decided not to develop a new guide on interoperability to avoid duplication of efforts, given the existing set of resources on the topic that already addressed the challenges outlined during the authors’ workshop. Instead, a comprehensive list of resources on interoperability was requested for inclusion in the Digital Health Companion.
Co-development of the final two knowledge products on private sector solutions and making the case for digital health also commenced, including the development of the skeletal outline for each through scoping of key challenges, review of existing resources, validation of challenges that remained unaddressed through these resources, and identification of pragmatic solutions and country experiences that can then be compiled and further developed. Member countries plan to finalize the remaining knowledge products through early 2026.
The World Bank provides technical facilitation for this Collaborative in partnership with the DigitalHealth Exemplars program, including the Center for Global Digital Health Innovation at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, eHealth Lab Ethiopia, the McKinsey Health Institute, Gates Ventures, and Exemplars in Global Health. Financial support from the Gates Foundation and the Government of Japan is gratefully acknowledged.
