WHA78 Side Event
Overcoming Barriers to Digital Health: Protecting Human Rights and Preventing Online Harm in the Digital Health Transformation
Date: Wednesday 21st May 2025
Time: 4:30pm to 6:00pm (CEST).
Hybrid: ImpactHub, Geneva (Rue Fendt 1, 1201 Genève, Switzerland) and online
The event will be followed by a networking apero from 6:00 pm to 7:00pm (CEST).
The Digital Health and Rights Project (DHRP) is pleased to invite you to attend a side event: ‘Overcoming Barriers to Digital Health: Protecting Human rights and Preventing Online Harm in the Digital Health Transformation’ at the upcoming World Health Assembly (WHA) 2025.
This side event will discuss Paying the Costs of Connection: Human Rights of Young Adults in the Digital Age in Colombia, Ghana, Kenya and Vietnam, DHRP’s new research report.
Paying the Costs of Connection is the largest international digital human rights study to date using a participatory action research approach. The report identifies critical gaps in human protections affecting access to digital health. It draws on insights from over 300 young adults who are living with HIV, LGBTQ+ and sex workers across four countries, and outlines key recommendations for policy makers, national governments, tech companies and funders to ensure the digital transformation of health does not reinforce existing inequalities or cause harms.
Speakers:
This event will convene experts and youth leaders to explore the actions stakeholders must take to safeguard human rights in the digital transformation of health, including:
- Dimiter Chalev: Chief of Equality and Non-Discrimination Branch (OHCHR)
- Alain Labrique: Director, Department of Digital Health and Innovation (WHO)
- Manish Pant: Policy Specialist, Digital Health (UNDP)
- Alistair Shaw: Senior Program Officer, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria
- Sara (Meg) Davis: Professor, Digital Health and Rights, University of Warwick
- Allan Maleche: Executive Director, KELIN
- Molly-Pugh-Jones: Advocacy Manager, STOPAIDS
- Representative of the Ministry of Health of Brazil
- Representative of the Ministry of Public Health of Thailand
- Representatives from Community Advisory Teams in Colombia, Ghana, Kenya and Vietnam
Cosponsors: The Ministry of Health of Brazil; Ministry of Public Health of Thailand; UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR); UN Development Programme (UNDP); International Federation of Medical Student Associations (IFMSA), STOPAIDS, DTH-Lab, Global Governance Centre (Geneva Graduate Institute), Global Health Centre (Geneva Graduate Institute), and Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies (University of Warwick).
