Early-release course

You are accessing an early-release version of the Social participation for universal health coverage course, produced by the WHO Academy. We encourage you to provide feedback on your learning experience. We will use your feedback to adapt and improve the course and the WHO Academy online platform.

About this course

This course is based on the WHO Handbook ‘Voice, agency, empowerment - handbook on social participation for universal health coverage’. It aims to provide practical guidance on strengthening meaningful government engagement with the population, communities, and civil society for national health policy-making. The course aims to:

• Provide you with the concepts, tools and methods to design and implement meaningful participation processes for your national policy context and health priorities; and

• Accelerate the adoption of sustainable, meaningful social participation processes as standard practice in all health systems working towards universal health coverage.

Who is this course for?

Decision- and policy-makers in public health, including the health emergency preparedness and response sector. Others who are interested learn more about inclusive participation are also invited to enrol.

What will you learn?

By the close of this course, you will be able to make approproate decisions to:

• Chose from a range of appropriate participatory mechanisms adapted to the policy objectives at stake.

• Build a conducive environment for meaningful participation by mitigating power imbalances among actors, in particular those whose voices are generally less heard to contribute and influence debates.

• Select participants to ensure credible and legitimate representation of the target public.

• Build the needed capacities of all participants to enhance meaningful engagement of all in participatory spaces.

• Ensure social participation results feed into decision-making processes for health policies, strategies and programmes.

• Sustain engagement of all participants over time by building and strengthening a culture of participation, institutionalizing participatory spaces using legal frameworks, and ensuring long-term and stable funding.

Assessment and Award

Receive an Award of Completion when you complete the course. The award is saved in your ‘My Achievements’ space and can be downloaded and shared.

Learning experience

There are 6 self-paced online modules. Modules contain short texts, videos, case studies, mini-games, scenarios and practice points. There are regular opportunities to self-assess your understanding and apply knowledge. Feedback and key take-aways are provided throughout.