Health - About us

 

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​​​​The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) Health Network brings together SDC staff from country offices and headquarters (Bern, Switzerland), as well as implementing partners and actors from other organisations around the world that are active in health cooperation, or in strengthening health systems, fostering greater equality in the access to health-related goods and services and/or progressing towards Universal Health Coverage, with focus on lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

The SDC Health Network is primarily a platform to support the implementation of SDC int​erventions in Health cooperation. The platform is however also key in capturing, processing and sharing knowledge and experiences, including results and key lessons, between colleagues, partners and other actors, from global to local levels. This includes, but is not limited to, programmatic and policy experience, bilateral and multilateral (Swiss) cooperation programmes, humanitarian aid activities, global initiative partner activitie​​s, and Swiss-based stakeholders and NGOs active in health.​ 


    • Facilitate exchange of experiences between countries and regions... for positioning and advocating the releva​nce of health in poverty reduction.​

    • Provide access to resources and technical expertise.....by using lessons learned to improve our work, developing incentives and stimulate innovations.
    • Foster field-field exchange... among practitioners, and network communication, sharing knowledge between SDC units and partners who likely know “how it works”, and thereby seek synergies with other SDC thematic networks and communities of practice.
    • Provide easy access to information...on international debates on relevant health issues.
    • Facilitate informed advice...for Swiss/SDC positions at board, institutional and technical level meetings.
    • Coordinate and foster communication and collaboration...on health programmes between operational fieldwork and decision-makers in Parliament.
    • ​Offer guidance and promote exchange... on priorities in health and on positioning SDC/Switzerland in international and global health debates.

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​​The Health Network publishes quarterly newsletters about health initiatives, projects and events both from SDC and its partners, with contributions from Health Network members. In addition, we publish Newsbriefs whenever there are relevant news to be shared. ​

     > Click here to read our latest Newsletters and Newsbriefs

The Network also creates opportunities to discuss latest developments and trends in the health domain, through online and face-to-face events.

     > Check out the events section ​

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Focal point

Selena Lopreno, SDC Health Focal Point

Selena Lopreno joined the SDC Network team in July 2023 as a health advisor for the health Unit of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. She has a background in political science and a Master of Sciences in global health, with a specialization in environmental health. Previously, Selena was working for the State Secretariat of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign affairs on global health in multilateral bodies. Among other, she represented Switzerland at the World Health Assembly, the Human rights Council, the Commission on Narcotic drugs and the UN General Assembly. Before this, she gained experience in research (Laboratory for Research and Study in Environment and Health, France and Addiction Medicine Unit of the CHUV, Switzerland) and in health promotion at the local level (Sacopar, Belgium).


Network support


Héloïse Bellenot, Academic Trainee





Héloïse has been working as an academic trainee for the SDC’s Health and Food systems sections since February 2024. Her numerous tasks include among other things managing the content of the Shareweb, maintaining the network and organizing the newsletter. During her Master’s degree in Asian studies (at the University of Geneva), she specialized in agroecology, conducting field research in South India and completed an internship with an NGO in North India. These experiences gave her valuable hands-on insights into interlinkages between food security, agriculture, environmental pollution, and health. As a research associate at the Albert Hirschman Centre for Democracy at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), she has dealt with international issues and multilateralism.


David Streiff, Network Facilitator






​​As an Evaluation and Learning Advisor at Helvetas, David supports Helvetas colleagues at head office and in the field in setting up Monitoring and Evaluation systems and pushes for results-based management approach within the projects he supports. David holds a master’s degree in Geography from the University of Bern, and previously worked with People In Need (PIN) in the Philippines, with Welthungerhilfe (WHH) in Germany and South Sudan and since 2022 with Helvetas. David is experienced in conducting rapid needs assessments (market, WASH and food), setting-up digital monitoring systems and capacitating colleagues to use those as well as support project during the planning phase with establishing theories of change and translating these into logframes.

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Membership
The SDC Health Network gathers practitioners and experts from a diversity of geographical and institutional backgrounds working in health and other sectors linked to health (SDC, other Swiss Federal Offices, bilateral- and multilateral organisations, (I)NGOs, Academia, Foundations, Networks, etc.).

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