“If we are going to holistically tackle the issue of climate change, then we need a radical health-in-all or climate-in-all approach that really garners all partners,” said Dr. Chalilwe Chungu, head of programming for Catholic Relief Services Zambia.
Speaking at Devex’s special LinkedIn Live event held in March, titled Climate’s impact on health: How do we respond?, Chungu explained how CRS aims to include proposals from the community they work with who are experiencing the health impacts of the climate crisis firsthand.
“We work with the communities, brainstorm with communities to develop solutions with them, and then escalate all those solutions right to municipal levels, sub-national levels and other levels, for us to have [a] holistic response,” Chungu said.
Chungu added that it was important to consider people who are often “left behind” in development agendas, including “marginalized people, women, children, people living with disabilities [and] people infected with HIV.”
The virtual event was held to coincide with the 58th session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and focused on how the global health community could build resilience and incorporate responses to issues such as extreme weather events and rising climate-sensitive diseases.
Prof. Dr. Jemilah Mahmood, executive director at the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, Sunway University; Vanina Laurent-Ledru, director general at Foundation S - The Sanofi Collective; and Dr. Remco van de Pas, senior research associate at the Centre for Planetary Health Policy, also spoke at the event, which was hosted by Devex Contributor Natalie Donback and Devex Editorial Director Richard Jones.
Visit the Planet Health series for more in-depth reporting on the current impact of the climate crisis on human health around the world. Join the conversation by using the hashtag #PlanetHealth.
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