KUWAIT: Under the guidance of the ministry of health and in partnership with the Gulf Health Council, the World Health Organization (WHO) Country Office for Kuwait, in collaboration with the UN System Staff College (UNSSC) and Johns Hopkins University delivered the second leadership training program under the title of "Health Leadership for Positive Change".

In opening remarks, Dr Rihab Al-Wotayan, Director International Health Relations at the Ministry of Health, said: "The ministry of health is incredibly proud of the hard working, talented and selfless professionals we have. It is critical for any organization to identify and to cultivate leaders from within, which is exactly why the MoH has been very keen in making the 'Health Leadership for Positive Change' a staple of the workshops offered to MoH staff. This workshop is unique in how it combines different sectors, professions and levels of seniority all under one roof, allowing the participants to see, hear and discuss different point of views with their colleagues, creating a sense of comradery which will continue long past this workshop.

"And all of this is done under the guidance of top international professionals from the MoH, WHO, UNSCC and Johns Hopkins University, ensuring an incredibly valuable experience for all of those involved. And, most importantly, ensuring our main stakeholders, the citizens and residents of Kuwait, will continue to have access to health leaders that are of an international standard."

Speaking on this occasion, Dr Assad Hafeez, WHO Representative to Kuwait, said: "We hope that with the sustained delivery of this course across cohorts of senior level officials at ministries of health in the region, we institute key competencies for leadership in public health that are responsive to the challenges unique to our populations. We have gathered experts from across the disciplinary board to deliver the tools and best practices that have evidenced impactful public health results."

The Health Leadership for Positive Change is an intensive 4-day program that will run from Nov 28 to Dec 1, 2022. Participants include mid-senior officials from MoH Kuwait and GCC countries. The program will enable participants to strengthen their leadership capacities in the realms of systems-thinking, communication, community partnership and stakeholder engagement, policy development and program planning for impactful development and implementation of the national public health agenda.

Topics will cover health and wellbeing at the cross-roads of sustainable development, foresight approaches in global public health, healthy diplomacy and the art of negotiations. Day 1 focused on the global goals and health within the sustainable development agenda. Day 2 focused on the challenge of prevailing mindset in health and reflections from COVID-19 learnings from the Eastern Mediterranean Region. On day 3, the theme is building on systems thinking within the public health atmosphere and leading high impact teams to deliver excellent results. On day 4, which will conclude the last day of the program, participants will be asked to apply the knowledge and skills of the previous days into simulation settings of real world public health scenarios.

The coordination of the course is led by Dr Rihab Al-Wotayan. The International Health Relations envisages a series of similar courses in coming years, with international collaboration, to develop a pool of world class well-groomed leaders within the health sector in Kuwait.