Better learning outcomes lead to improved health outcomes and vice versa. This is particularly true for women and girls. Ensuring quality education for all is central to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, specifically the goals that ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all, at all ages. At the same time, learning outcomes are also critically dependent on the health and nutrition of the individual learner.

But to what extent does international cooperation link health and education? Which examples of collaboration between the two sectors exist? What are the needs and principal barriers? What are the conditions for making collaboration effective?

This conference wants to highlight the links between health and education as global public goods, and explore common challenges as well as learning opportunities. It will thereby focus on investments in three main areas:

  • Health workforce development
  • Safe and healthy school environments
  • Community engagement/awareness-raising for health and education

The conference will be opened by Alexander De Croo, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Development Cooperation, Digital Agenda, Telecom and Postal services, followed by a keynote address which will provide a helicopter view of the intersection between health and education. Subsequently, an expert panel will make the case for investing in education and health and highlight international priorities for this crucial interplay.

In the afternoon, four parallel sessions will focus on innovative practices and examples of collaboration between a wide range of development actors – international and Belgian – working on education and/or health:

  • Session A: Two Birds, One Stone. How can comprehensive sexuality education and programmes addressing school-related gender-based violence contribute to better sexual and reproductive health and education outcomes? Lessons for policy, practice and partnerships. Read more
  • Session B: The POWER of KNOWING. Training practices for healthcare professionals combining innovation and tried and tested methods with a view to making teams more independent. Read more
  • Session C: Citizens claiming their rights. How to engage communities in realizing the right to health and education. Read more
  • Session D: Where education meets health: health education for children and adolescents. Developing adequate and contextualised teaching materials to promote general understanding of diabetes and first aid to enhance children and adolescents’ ability to be more resilient, safer and healthier. Read more

During the breaks, topical poster sessions will provide an opportunity to learn about other health and education initiatives. If you want to propose your recent project experiences or research findings in a poster session, do not hesitate to contact the conference organisers as soon as possible, and at the latest by 20 April 2018.

The annual conferences of Be-cause health and Educaid.be aim to enrich discussion on respectively health and education issues within international cooperation by giving the floor to academics and researchers, policy makers and practitioners from all over the world. With this joint conference, both platforms aim to trigger critical reflection on the roles of international development actors in combining education and health.
 

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