Building Sustainable Partnerships for Climate Resilience and Health Equity

As communities around the world face the increasing impacts of climate change, climate and sustainability are increasingly recognized as central global health concerns. Climate is profoundly and negatively affecting health and well-being, particularly exacerbating pre-existing health inequalities, including risk of disease, mental health, and the access and use of health services by young people, aging populations and all those already marginalized or at heightened risk of discrimination.

Rising temperatures, extreme weather events, food and water insecurity, and shifting disease patterns are already reversing progress across multiple health and development areas – placing everyone including the most vulnerable populations at great risk. These challenges are occurring alongside growing political instability and rises in authoritarianism and nationalism, widening inequalities, increasingly constrained funding environments, and waves of misinformation and disinformation, including climate change denialism. The need to address the linkages between these issues through strong, cross-sectoral partnerships is urgent.

Throughout the 2025–2026 academic year, the USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health (IIGH) is convening a series of dialogues examining how large-scale and multi-country partnerships can respond to the complex challenges of this era.

With attention to the outcomes from COP30 recently held in Belém, Brazil, this session will focus on climate change and climate resilience, exploring how diverse actors—including academia, government, multilateral institutions, philanthropy, the private sector, and civil society—are building new and innovative partnerships to transcend traditional silos and support integrated, equitable, and sustainable climate-health solutions.

The dialogue will be moderated by IIGH Research Director Laura Ferguson with opening remarks from IIGH Director Sofia Gruskin.

The webinar is hosted by the USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health.

Please join us on Wednesday, December 3, at 9:00 am PST/12:00 pm EST/6:00 pm CET.

This program is open to all eligible individuals. IIGH operates all of its programs and activities consistent with the University’s Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor.

Speakers:

Johanna Gonçalves Martín is a medical doctor (Universidad Central de Venezuela), epidemiologist (Institute for Tropical Medicine Antwerp) and social anthropologist (University of Cambridge) from Venezuela. She has worked for over 20 years with indigenous peoples in the Venezuelan and Colombian Amazon at the intersection between biomedical and indigenous Amazonian care practices. In a recent multisite project on a One Health approach to the COVID-19 pandemic in Amazonia (funded by the IDRC COHRIE call 2021-2024), she was part of a team investigating indigenous responses to epidemics and focused on the gendered relationships of care that sustained people and living territories during that time. Johanna is a recently nominated Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions Fellow at the University of Bologna, with a research project on the circulation of healing plants and technologies for their use through indigenous networks along the Amazon River, and on the related discourses around Amazonian medicinal plants from colonial times into current intercultural health policies. She currently lives in the Amazon, at the Triple Border between Brazil, Colombia and Peru.

Hamzah Sarwar is the Global Head of Social Impact and Innovation at Reckitt, where he leads the company’s Global Access Fund that invests to promote universal access to health and hygiene. Since 2020, the fund has impacted over 29 million people across 56 countries, scaling social innovation and entrepreneurship to tackle systemic societal inequities. Hamzah is a Top 100 ChangeLeader, One Young World Ambassador, Global Fellow with the League of Intrapreneurs, and an alumnus of University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Social Impact Strategy.

Litiana Lagibalavu is a Fijian feminist and climate justice advocate serving as Co-Focal Point for Gender and Human Rights with the Alliance for Future Generations Fiji. With a background in commerce and law and experience across intergenerational and grassroots advocacy, she works to advance rights-based, climate-resilient leadership across Fiji and the Pacific. A member of the PICAN-led COP31 Steering Committee, Litiana has co-led youth programs such as AFG Fiji’s 30-Day Climate Resilience Challenge. She has also been a Climate Reality Australia Pacific REALITY Tour workshop facilitator and a keynote speaker at the Climate and Health Alliance Summit 2025 in Gold Coast, Australia. She has secured grants from UNDP, strengthening youth and gender justice movements. Her activism also includes ocean justice work and solidarity with the Fijians for Palestine Network. Litiana’s leadership centers intersectional, decolonial, and feminist approaches to Pacific climate and human rights advocacy.

… and other fantastic speakers!

Moderator:

Laura Ferguson is an Associate Professor of Population and Public Health Sciences at the University of Southern California, the Director of the Program on Global Health & Human Rights, and the Director of Research at the USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health. Her research focuses on understanding and addressing health system and societal factors affecting health and the uptake of health services as well as developing the evidence base of how attention to human rights can improve health outcomes. Her work focuses primarily on HIV, sexual and reproductive health, child health and One Health. She is also an associate editor for Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters and the American Journal of Public Health.

Opening Remarks:

Sofia Gruskin directs the USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health (IIGH). She is USC Distinguished Professor of Population, Public Health Sciences & Law, Professor of Preventive Medicine and Chief of the Disease Prevention, Policy and Global Health Division at the Keck School of Medicine, and Professor of Law and Preventive Medicine at the Gould School of Law. She has published extensively, including several books, training manuals and edited journal volumes, and more than 200 articles and chapters.