![](\"https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/75dbb5c-7ab-424b-40af-d555cbcaec_newsletter-en.640.jpg?ssl=1\"/)
Dear Reader,
\n\n\n\nPlease do one thing today.
\n\n\n\nConfirm you will join us for World Malaria Day.
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLearn more about the event here.
\n\n\n\nTo join in our Zoom studio, use this link.
\n\n\n\nYour click is powerful.
\n\n\n\nIt says that you care about ending malaria.
\n\n\n\nIt helps other health workers in your network find the event.
\n\n\n\nOn World Malaria Day, we will release the first malaria report written by and for the people who fight this disease in their own communities.
\n\n\n\nAs a newsletter subscriber, you get early access.
\n\n\n\nEvery month, we will host a livestreamed event.
\n\n\n\nYou get to connect with colleagues, share what we are learning together.
\n\n\n\nYou will also be the first learn what comes next.
\n\n\n\nBest regards,
\n\n\n\nReda Sadki and Charlotte Mbuh
The Geneva Learning Foundation
PS Are you following us on LinkedIn?
\n\n\n\nOn 23 April, we will release Malaria: Turning the tide.
\n\n\n\nIt is the first Teach to Reach insights report written by and for the people who fight malaria every day.
\n\n\n\nMore than 1,000 health workers from 68 countries told us what they are seeing.
\n\n\n\nWhat is working.
\n\n\n\nWhat is not.
\n\n\n\nLearn about the report, then download the full version.
\n\n\n\n\u27a1\ufe0f Read the press release
\n\n\n\n\u27a1\ufe0f Download the report in English
\n\n\n\nYou can now ask the report your own questions.
\n\n\n\nWe loaded Malaria: Turning the tide into NotebookLM.
\n\n\n\nIt has read all 170 pages.
\n\n\n\nYou type a question in plain language.
\n\n\n\nIt answers, and it shows you where in the report the answer came from.
\n\n\n\nTry asking it what health workers in your country said.
\n\n\n\nOr ask how climate change is shifting malaria where they work.
\n\n\n\n\u27a1\ufe0f Chat with the report on NotebookLM
\n\n\n\nFor our tenth anniversary, we asked TGLF Scholars two questions.
\n\n\n\nIn 48 hours, 222 of them wrote back from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe.
\n\n\n\nMarcel Muntu Ilunga, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, reached every single one of 93 children aged 0 to 23 months within 30 days.
\n\n\n\nNo budget.
\n\n\n\nNo roads.
\n\n\n\nIn Bauchi State, Nigeria, a young health worker asked a traditional leader to let girls keep learning.
\n\n\n\nHe turned to his council and said, \u201cIf she still has the will to learn, and there is support to help her, who are we to stop her?\u201d
\n\n\n\n\u27a1\ufe0f See what your colleagues said: Ten years of peer learning and action: the alumni of The Geneva Learning Foundation, in their own words
\n\n\n\nHere is what is opening this month. Do not delay: enrollment closes soon.
\n\n\n\nA crisis cuts off a mother\u2019s insulin. A grandfather loses his blood pressure medication. A child can no longer get an inhaler. This new course, built with Dr. Shanthi Mendis, retired WHO Senior Adviser for NCDs, gives you tools you can use before, during, and after a disaster to support people living with NCDs. Learn more about this certification
\n\n\n\nOlder people are the fastest growing group in many countries. This new certificate helps you lead healthy ageing work in your community. Learn more about this certification
\n\n\n\nMenopause affects every woman who lives long enough. In most health systems, it is invisible. This new primer, built with Menoglobal, makes menopause part of your practice. Learn more about this certification
\n\n\n\nHuman health, animal health, and the environment are one system. This programme builds the skills to work across all three. Learn more about this certification
\n\n\n\nOn 22 April, Earth Day, we will announce a new partnership.
\n\n\n\nOn 23 April, ahead of World Malaria Day, we will release Malaria: Turning the tide live, and the new malaria programme will open the same day.
\n\n\n\nFrom then on, we go live every month.
\n\n\n\nYou will hear from peers.
\n\n\n\nWe will share what we are learning together.
\n\n\n\nWe will announce what comes next.
\n\n\n\nSee you on 23 April.
\n","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/8pekw-0bh77","funding_references":null,"guid":"https://redasadki.me/?p=23365","id":"f0593a75-c558-4973-95c3-8567acef1c4f","image":"https://redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/20260417.MALARIA-and-peer-learning-scaled.jpg","images":[{"src":"https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/75dbb5c-7ab-424b-40af-d555cbcaec_newsletter-en.640.jpg?ssl=1"}],"indexed":true,"indexed_at":1776435503,"language":"en","parent_doi":null,"published_at":1776434833,"reference":[],"registered_at":0,"relationships":[],"rid":"7dgx5-cxk18","status":"active","summary":"Dear Reader, Please do one thing today. Confirm you will join us for World Malaria Day. CONFIRM YOUR PARTICIPATION Learn more about the event\u00a0here. To join in our Zoom studio,\u00a0use this link. Your click is powerful. It says that you care about ending malaria. It helps other health workers in your network find the event.","tags":["The Geneva Learning Foundation","Malaria","Tenth Anniversary"],"title":"Who cares about malaria? Find out in TGLF\u2019s latest newsletter","updated_at":1776434850,"url":"https://redasadki.me/2026/04/17/who-cares-about-malaria-find-out-in-tglfs-latest-newsletter/","version":"v1"}},{"document":{"abstract":null,"archive_url":null,"authors":[{"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Priego","given":"Ernesto"}],"blog":{"archive_collection":22187,"archive_host":null,"archive_prefix":null,"archive_timestamps":null,"authors":[{"name":"Ernesto Priego"}],"canonical_url":null,"category":"humanities","community_id":"ae617b4e-ce60-495f-a839-e05f4c0da6b5","created_at":1698796800,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Ernesto Priego's blog. A personal repository of stuff.","doi":null,"doi_as_guid":false,"favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/ae617b4e-ce60-495f-a839-e05f4c0da6b5/logo","feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":" https://ernestopriego.com/feed/atom/","filter":null,"funding":null,"generator":"WordPress.com","generator_raw":"WordPress.com","home_page_url":"https://ernestopriego.com","id":"34b34502-27f1-4c72-8e64-5d347a8c7613","indexed":false,"issn":null,"language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","mastodon":null,"prefix":"10.59350","registered_at":1725095823,"relative_url":null,"ror":null,"secure":true,"slug":"ernestopriego","status":"active","subfield":"1213","subfield_validated":null,"title":"Everything is Connected","updated_at":1776413915.874121,"use_api":true,"use_mastodon":false,"user_id":"a057a06d-ab56-4ee3-b39f-2a85ea1a2749"},"blog_name":"Everything is Connected","blog_slug":"ernestopriego","content_html":"\n\n\n\n\n\n“Technological innovation has made it easy to separate the apparent from the existant. And this is precisely what the present system\u2019s mythology continually needs to exploit. It turns appearances into refractions, like mirages: refractions not of light but of appetite, in fact a single appetite, the appetite for more.” – John Berger, Steps Towards a Small Theory of the Visible, 2001
\n
The announcement of the \u201cEcos\u201d tour built around Soda Stereo, featuring a holographic rendering (\u201ca virtual, high tech representation\u201d) of Gustavo Cerati (1959\u20132014) performing alongside original members Charly Alberti (drums) and Zeta Bosio (bass), who are still alive and perform live alongside the hologram, has marked a striking moment in the evolving relationship between technology, memory, and cultural consumption in Latin America.
\n\n\n\nOpening on 21 March 2026 at the Movistar Arena in Buenos Aires and scheduled to run through to September 2026, concluding in Madrid, the event is presented as a concert experience while drawing on archival recordings and visual reconstruction, described by spectators as \u201ca hologram\u201d or \u201ca digital avatar\u201d, to simulate the presence of a performer who is no longer alive. The result, for me, is disquieting: an attempt to collapse the distance between absence and presence, death and performance, what is recorded and what is performed live.
\n\n\n\nNeedless to say, Jean Baudrillard\u2019s notion of the simulacrum, first published in 1981, is an obvious point of departure for engaging with this phenomenon, describing a condition in which representations no longer refer to any underlying reality and instead generate their own self contained logic. In the case of the \u201cEcos\u201d tour, the situation appears to extend beyond this. There is an effort to reinstall the original within the copy and to render the distinction irrelevant to the spectator. Who cares if Cerati is not really there, performing live? Who cares if he is actually dead?
\n\n\n\nAn obvious precedent is the ABBA Voyage project, 1which opened to the public on 27 May 2022 at the purpose built ABBA Arena in London and has since been extended repeatedly, with performances scheduled to continue until at least November 2026. The production employs advanced visual technologies to stage performances by digital avatars of the band\u2019s members. The difference between “Voyage” and “Ecos” remains significant: all four members of ABBA are still alive. The sense of unease in ABBA Voyage emerges from temporal dissonance, as audiences encounter youthful versions of artists whose ageing is widely known. The illusion engages memory and nostalgia while leaving intact the boundary between life and death. In the Soda Stereo case, that boundary is precisely what is unsettled. Cerati is presented in a form that suggests renewed performance despite his death. The simulation moves beyond evoking an image and attempts to construct a form of presence.
\n\n\n\nThis shift resonates with John Berger\u2019s observation in Steps Toward a Small Theory of the Visible, first published in 2001, that \u201ctechnological innovation has made it easy to separate the apparent from the existent.\u201d Berger described a world in which images proliferate independently of the bodies and realities they once indexed, producing a spectacle of disembodied appearances driven by consumption, even though he did not live to experience the excesses of algorithms and generative artificial intelligence that define the present moment. A quarter of a century later, there is a discernible transformation of this condition. In holographic performances such as \u201cEcos\u201d, the apparent and the existent are drawn together through a deliberate act of recombination. The illusion is staged as a form of existence and presence.
\n\n\n\nThe audience is invited to, importantly, pay to experience a concert that cannot take place in any conventional sense. The technological apparatus performs a conceptual inversion in which absence is overwritten. What appears is treated, for the duration of the event, as what is. The ontological gap identified by Berger remains, yet it becomes functionally irrelevant within the spectacle. Audience engagement here is not about belief in authenticity. What is expected is a willingness to participate in consumption, in alignment with a status quo shaped by the fear of missing out and the expectation of immediate access to everything, whenever it is desired, at the click of a button.
\n\n\n\nFor me, it has been shocking to observe the willingness of some fans and critics to embrace this show and to respond positively to it. Apparently, those who are critical of it are \u201cmissing the point\u201d. I do think it raises pressing ethical questions. At what point does homage give way to appropriation? Who authorises the posthumous performance of an artist, and under what conditions? Does legal ownership of image and recordings fully address the transformation of those materials into a simulated performing presence?
\n\n\n\nIn “Ecos”,” a shift occurs from reproduction towards animation, where a performing subject is constructed in the absence of a living individual. This points towards a paradigmatic shift: if a dead performer can be made to perform again and again, post mortem, what of the rights of living performers, and of the values traditionally granted to live music? One is also reminded of Carrie Fisher in The Rise of Skywalker (2019), where she appeared through unused footage and CGI. It However, there are still considerable, and nuanced, distictions to be made between such a use of CGI in a film (where the spectator does not always-already assume the actors on the screen are alive and where there is no live interaction between the audience and the living actors) and the use of the sound and image digital trickery as employed in “Ecos”, where the audience interacts with the performance (and therefore unavoidably must think of it) as a live event.
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://epriego.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/leia-blogroll-1577761943850_160w.webp\")
And here is the rub: it is all about commercial logic and the search for endless profit. Berger\u2019s argument that image proliferation is driven by an appetite reminds us of this. Death itself appears as a limit to be overcome through technological means. Once audiences accept holographic, videographic, or deep fake performance as equivalent to live presence, the economic possibilities expand considerably. The only norm becomes continuous exploitation.
\n\n\n\nThe implications extend beyond aesthetics into questions of existence. Berger warned that the separation of appearance from existence erodes what he called \u201cNecessity\u201d, the condition that grounds human experience in finitude, vulnerability, and embodiment. Without this grounding, experience becomes harder to share and is replaced by a spectacle that fosters isolation. Holographic and deep fake concerts intensify this condition by presenting presence without the constraints of living bodies. The experience offered is stripped of contingency, risk, and mutual encounter.
\n\n\n\nWhat is diminished in such performances is a sense of relation, of communion. A live concert involves more than the execution of sound and image. It is shaped by the co presence of performers and audience, by unpredictability, and by the shared awareness of time passing irreversibly. The awareness of the performer\u2019s living physical presence, in relation to our own, has long defined much of the essence of live music. When we sing along, it is our own voices that create communication and communion. There was always an awareness that a given moment, despite repetition throughout a tour, was absolutely unique. A pre recorded and technologically mediated simulation, appreciated in much the same way as a fully live concert, replaces this with replication. It becomes a spectacle in which participants risk deceiving others and themselves. Singing along to a projection of a dead performer as if they were alive and truly in front of us / in our presence is not only unsettling; it can feel empty and even embarrassing.
\n\n\n\nIf the \u201cEcos\u201d tour proves sustainable and achieves commercial success, it is likely to establish a precedent. Rights holders may increasingly turn to holographic or deep fake performances as reliable and repeatable sources of revenue. Ethical hesitation may diminish as such practices become normalised. What begins as an exceptional spectacle may become routine. This is all, perhaps, obvious.
\n\n\n\nThe central question concerns the implications of resurrecting the dead for entertainment, and in particular for entertainment described as \u201clive\u201d. The issue extends beyond the legacy of individual artists and touches on broader cultural understandings of presence, memory, and mortality. The holographic Cerati does not restore the artist. Even if Soda Stereo was never only Cerati, and the remaining members perform alongside the digital reconstruction, “Ecos” produces a version that can be consumed without the resistance of reality. The apparent stands in for the existent through a process that persuades audiences to overlook the gap between them.
\n\n\n\nThese views may well be dismissed as those of an older voice resisting change, yet I hope they remain worth articulating. The extent to which this substitution is accepted may shape, at the very least, the future of live performance and influence how distinctions between lived experience and technologically mediated display continue to be understood.2
\n\n\n\nREFERENCES
\n\n\n\nBaudrillard, J. 1994 [1981]. Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
\n\n\n\nBerger, J. 2025 [2001]. “Steps Towards a Small Theory of the Visible”, in Hold Everything Dear: Dispatches on Survival and Resistance, London: Verso.
\n\n\n\nRomero Nu\u00f1ez, F. (2026). “Critics say the \u2018Ecos\u2019 tour is not Soda Stereo. They\u2019re missing the point”. Buenos Aires Herald. 15 April 2026. Available at https://buenosairesherald.com/op-ed/critics-say-ecos-tour-is-not-soda-stereo-theyre-missing-the-point. [Accessed 17 April 2026].
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/jq6z6-dar26","funding_references":null,"guid":"https://ernestopriego.com/?p=11581","id":"a7b83ddc-803c-4063-b77a-1ad3240a6f27","image":"https://epriego.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/leia-blogroll-1577761943850_160w.webp?w=1024","images":[{"height":"576","sizes":"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px","src":"https://epriego.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/leia-blogroll-1577761943850_160w.webp?w=1024","srcset":"https://epriego.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/leia-blogroll-1577761943850_160w.webp?w=1024, https://epriego.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/leia-blogroll-1577761943850_160w.webp?w=150, https://epriego.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/leia-blogroll-1577761943850_160w.webp?w=300, https://epriego.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/leia-blogroll-1577761943850_160w.webp?w=768, https://epriego.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/leia-blogroll-1577761943850_160w.webp","width":"1024"}],"indexed":true,"indexed_at":1776445187,"language":"en","parent_doi":null,"published_at":1776434248,"reference":[{"id":"https://buenosairesherald.com/op-ed/critics-say-ecos-tour-is-not-soda-stereo-theyre-missing-the-point"}],"registered_at":0,"relationships":[],"rid":"q9xm9-s5295","status":"active","summary":"\n T\n\nhe announcement of the \u201cEcos\u201d tour built around Soda Stereo, featuring a holographic rendering (\u201ca virtual, high tech representation\u201d) of Gustavo Cerati (1959\u20132014) performing alongside original members Charly Alberti (drums) and Zeta Bosio (bass), who are still alive and perform live alongside the hologram, has marked a striking moment in the evolving relationship between technology, memory, and cultural consumption in Latin","tags":["Scraps"],"title":"When the Dead Perform: Simulacra, Spectacle, and the Ethics of Faking the Live Performance","updated_at":1776443861,"url":"https://ernestopriego.com/2026/04/17/when-the-dead-perform-simulacra-spectacle-and-the-ethics-of-faking-the-live-performance/","version":"v1"}},{"document":{"abstract":"Cher Lecteur, Ch\u00e8re Lectrice, Nous vous demandons une seule chose aujourd\u2019hui. Confirmez votre pr\u00e9sence pour la Journ\u00e9e mondiale contre le paludisme. Pour en savoir plus sur l\u2019\u00e9v\u00e9nement,\u00a0cliquez ici. Pour nous rejoindre dans notre studio Zoom,\u00a0utilisez ce lien. Votre clic compte. Il dit que vous tenez \u00e0 mettre fin au paludisme.","archive_url":null,"authors":[{"affiliation":[{"id":"https://ror.org/04h13ss13","name":"The Geneva Learning Foundation"}],"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Sadki","given":"Reda","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4051-0606"}],"blog":{"archive_collection":null,"archive_host":null,"archive_prefix":null,"archive_timestamps":null,"authors":null,"canonical_url":null,"category":"educationalSciences","community_id":"7e26491f-41c6-4665-9088-5aa6643a1ba8","created_at":1731211871,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Learning to make a difference","doi":null,"doi_as_guid":false,"favicon":null,"feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://redasadki.me/feed/atom/","filter":null,"funding":null,"generator":"WordPress","generator_raw":"WordPress 6.7.1","home_page_url":"https://redasadki.me","id":"88b8caba-b485-4654-96ce-a21547abaab3","indexed":true,"issn":null,"language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","mastodon":"https://techhub.social/@redasadki","prefix":"10.59350","registered_at":0,"relative_url":null,"ror":null,"secure":true,"slug":"redasadki","status":"active","subfield":"3304","subfield_validated":null,"title":"Reda Sadki","updated_at":1776414966.842998,"use_api":true,"use_mastodon":false,"user_id":"0d34dfde-a007-4ec9-9bc6-7b0318fa2c5e"},"blog_name":"Reda Sadki","blog_slug":"redasadki","content_html":"\nCher Lecteur, Ch\u00e8re Lectrice,
\n\n\n\nNous vous demandons une seule chose aujourd\u2019hui.
\n\n\n\nConfirmez votre pr\u00e9sence pour la Journ\u00e9e mondiale contre le paludisme.
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPour en savoir plus sur l\u2019\u00e9v\u00e9nement, cliquez ici.
\n\n\n\nPour nous rejoindre dans notre studio Zoom, utilisez ce lien.
\n\n\n\nVotre clic compte.
\n\n\n\nIl dit que vous tenez \u00e0 mettre fin au paludisme.
\n\n\n\nIl aide d\u2019autres professionnels de la sant\u00e9 de votre r\u00e9seau \u00e0 trouver l\u2019\u00e9v\u00e9nement.
\n\n\n\nLe jour de la Journ\u00e9e mondiale contre le paludisme, nous publierons le premier rapport sur le paludisme \u00e9crit par et pour celles et ceux qui combattent cette maladie dans leurs propres communaut\u00e9s.
\n\n\n\nEn tant qu\u2019abonn\u00e9 \u00e0 cette lettre d\u2019information, vous y avez acc\u00e8s en avant-premi\u00e8re.
\n\n\n\nChaque mois, nous organiserons un \u00e9v\u00e9nement en direct.
\n\n\n\nVous pourrez \u00e9changer avec des coll\u00e8gues et partager ce que nous apprenons ensemble.
\n\n\n\nVous serez aussi les premiers \u00e0 d\u00e9couvrir ce qui vient ensuite.
\n\n\n\nCordialement,
\n\n\n\nReda Sadki et Charlotte Mbuh
La Fondation Apprendre Gen\u00e8ve
PS Nous suivez-vous sur LinkedIn ?
\n\n\n\n![](\"https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/ed3db87-c34a-b7e3-60-81c6566183d_newsletter-fr.640.jpg?ssl=1\"/)
Le 23 avril, nous publierons Paludisme : inverser la tendance.
C\u2019est le premier rapport d\u2019analyse Teach to Reach \u00e9crit par et pour celles et ceux qui combattent le paludisme au quotidien.
\n\n\n\nPlus de 1 000 professionnels de la sant\u00e9 de 68 pays nous ont dit ce qu\u2019ils observent.
\n\n\n\nCe qui fonctionne.
\n\n\n\nCe qui ne fonctionne pas.
\n\n\n\nD\u00e9couvrez le rapport, puis t\u00e9l\u00e9chargez la version compl\u00e8te.
\n\n\n\n\u27a1\ufe0f Lire le communiqu\u00e9 de presse
\n\n\n\n\u27a1\ufe0f T\u00e9l\u00e9charger le rapport en fran\u00e7ais
\n\n\n\nVous pouvez maintenant poser vos propres questions au rapport.
\n\n\n\nNous avons charg\u00e9 Paludisme : inverser la tendance dans NotebookLM.
\n\n\n\nL\u2019outil a lu les 170 pages du rapport.
\n\n\n\nVous tapez une question dans un langage simple.
\n\n\n\nIl r\u00e9pond et vous indique \u00e0 quel endroit du rapport se trouve la r\u00e9ponse.
\n\n\n\nEssayez de lui demander ce que les professionnels de la sant\u00e9 de votre pays ont dit.
\n\n\n\nOu demandez-lui comment le changement climatique modifie le paludisme l\u00e0 o\u00f9 ils travaillent.
\n\n\n\n\u27a1\ufe0f Dialoguer avec le rapport sur NotebookLM
\n\n\n\nPour notre dixi\u00e8me anniversaire, nous avons pos\u00e9 deux questions aux Scholars de la Fondation.
\n\n\n\nEn 48 heures, 222 d\u2019entre eux nous ont r\u00e9pondu depuis l\u2019Afrique, l\u2019Asie, l\u2019Am\u00e9rique latine et l\u2019Europe.
\n\n\n\nMarcel Muntu Ilunga, en R\u00e9publique d\u00e9mocratique du Congo, a vaccin\u00e9 chacun des 93 enfants \u00e2g\u00e9s de 0 \u00e0 23 mois de sa zone, en 30 jours.
\n\n\n\nSans budget.
\n\n\n\nSans routes praticables.
\n\n\n\nDans l\u2019\u00c9tat de Bauchi, au Nig\u00e9ria, une jeune professionnelle de la sant\u00e9 a demand\u00e9 \u00e0 un chef traditionnel de laisser les filles continuer d\u2019\u00e9tudier.
\n\n\n\nIl s\u2019est tourn\u00e9 vers son conseil et a dit : \u00ab Si elle a encore la volont\u00e9 d\u2019apprendre, et qu\u2019il y a du soutien pour l\u2019aider, qui sommes-nous pour l\u2019arr\u00eater ? \u00bb
\n\n\n\n\u27a1\ufe0f D\u00e9couvrez ce que vos coll\u00e8gues ont dit : Dix ans d\u2019apprentissage entre pairs et d\u2019action : les anciens Scholars de La Fondation Apprendre Gen\u00e8ve, avec leurs propres mots
\n\n\n\nVoici ce qui ouvre ce mois-ci. Ne tardez pas : les inscriptions ferment bient\u00f4t.
\n\n\n\nUne crise coupe l\u2019insuline d\u2019une m\u00e8re. Un grand-p\u00e8re perd son traitement contre l\u2019hypertension. Un enfant n\u2019a plus acc\u00e8s \u00e0 son inhalateur. Cette nouvelle formation, con\u00e7ue avec la Dre Shanthi Mendis, ancienne conseill\u00e8re principale de l\u2019OMS pour les maladies non transmissibles, vous donne des outils utiles avant, pendant et apr\u00e8s une catastrophe pour accompagner les personnes atteintes de maladies non transmissibles. En savoir plus sur cette certification
\n\n\n\nLes personnes \u00e2g\u00e9es sont le groupe qui cro\u00eet le plus vite dans de nombreux pays. Ce nouveau certificat vous aide \u00e0 conduire le changement pour un vieillissement en bonne sant\u00e9 dans votre communaut\u00e9. En savoir plus sur cette certification
\n\n\n\nLa sant\u00e9 humaine, la sant\u00e9 animale et l\u2019environnement ne forment qu\u2019un seul syst\u00e8me. Cette formation d\u00e9veloppe les comp\u00e9tences pour agir sur ces trois dimensions. En savoir plus sur cette certification
\n\n\n\nLe 22 avril, jour de la Terre, nous annoncerons un nouveau partenariat.
\n\n\n\nLe 23 avril, \u00e0 la veille de la Journ\u00e9e mondiale contre le paludisme, nous publierons Paludisme : inverser la tendance en direct, et la nouvelle formation sur le paludisme ouvrira le m\u00eame jour.
\n\n\n\n\u00c0 partir de l\u00e0, nous serons en direct chaque mois.
\n\n\n\nVous entendrez vos pairs.
\n\n\n\nNous partagerons ce que nous apprenons ensemble.
\n\n\n\nNous annoncerons ce qui vient ensuite.
\n\n\n\nRendez-vous le 23 avril.
\n","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/xacbs-3n339","funding_references":null,"guid":"https://redasadki.me/?p=23359","id":"9f01a6cf-5d54-4655-9ef1-326a7d33e3de","image":"https://redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/20260417.Paludisme-et-apprentissage-par-les-pairs-scaled.jpg","images":[{"src":"https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/ed3db87-c34a-b7e3-60-81c6566183d_newsletter-fr.640.jpg?ssl=1"}],"indexed":true,"indexed_at":1776435505,"language":"fr","parent_doi":null,"published_at":1776434106,"reference":[],"registered_at":0,"relationships":[],"rid":"paxmz-5nz52","status":"active","summary":"Cher Lecteur, Ch\u00e8re Lectrice, Nous vous demandons une seule chose aujourd\u2019hui. Confirmez votre pr\u00e9sence pour la Journ\u00e9e mondiale contre le paludisme. Confirmer votre participation Pour en savoir plus sur l\u2019\u00e9v\u00e9nement,\u00a0cliquez ici. Pour nous rejoindre dans notre studio Zoom,\u00a0utilisez ce lien. Votre clic compte. Il dit que vous tenez \u00e0 mettre fin au paludisme.","tags":["The Geneva Learning Foundation","Fran\u00e7ais","Malaria","Paludisme"],"title":"Face au paludisme: Lettre d\u2019information n\u00b0\u00a02 de la Fondation Apprendre Gen\u00e8ve","updated_at":1776434119,"url":"https://redasadki.me/2026/04/17/face-au-paludisme-lettre-dinformation-n-2-de-la-fondation-apprendre-geneve/","version":"v1"}},{"document":{"abstract":"Geneva, 17 April 2026 \u2013 The Geneva Learning Foundation releases the first peer-generated evidence base from more than a thousand frontline health workers on what is working, what is failing, and what needs to change in the fight against malaria.","archive_url":null,"authors":[{"affiliation":[{"id":"https://ror.org/04h13ss13","name":"The Geneva Learning Foundation"}],"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Sadki","given":"Reda","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4051-0606"}],"blog":{"archive_collection":null,"archive_host":null,"archive_prefix":null,"archive_timestamps":null,"authors":null,"canonical_url":null,"category":"educationalSciences","community_id":"7e26491f-41c6-4665-9088-5aa6643a1ba8","created_at":1731211871,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Learning to make a difference","doi":null,"doi_as_guid":false,"favicon":null,"feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://redasadki.me/feed/atom/","filter":null,"funding":null,"generator":"WordPress","generator_raw":"WordPress 6.7.1","home_page_url":"https://redasadki.me","id":"88b8caba-b485-4654-96ce-a21547abaab3","indexed":true,"issn":null,"language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","mastodon":"https://techhub.social/@redasadki","prefix":"10.59350","registered_at":0,"relative_url":null,"ror":null,"secure":true,"slug":"redasadki","status":"active","subfield":"3304","subfield_validated":null,"title":"Reda Sadki","updated_at":1776414966.842998,"use_api":true,"use_mastodon":false,"user_id":"0d34dfde-a007-4ec9-9bc6-7b0318fa2c5e"},"blog_name":"Reda Sadki","blog_slug":"redasadki","content_html":"\n![\"\"](\"https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/T2R-EN-Malaria-Turning-the-tide.zenodo.15126588-COVER.jpg?resize=225%2C300&ssl=1\")
Geneva, 17 April 2026 \u2013 The Geneva Learning Foundation releases the first peer-generated evidence base from more than a thousand frontline health workers on what is working, what is failing, and what needs to change in the fight against malaria.
\n\n\n\nThe Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) today releases Malaria: Turning the tide, the first peer-generated evidence base from the 11th Teach to Reach event, organized in partnership with the RBM Partnership to End Malaria.
\n\n\n\nThe report is published in English and French on the occasion of World Malaria Day 2026.
\n\n\n\nThe report documents what health workers from across the Global South know about malaria in the places where they live and work.
\n\n\n\nIt is also the first output from a new TGLF malaria initiative that launches this spring.
\n\n\n\nHave a conversation with the report. You type a question in plain language, for example “What did health workers say about bed nets?” or “What are local solutions to drug shortages?”, and the tool answers using only the content of this report. You do not need any technical skill or any prior experience with artificial intelligence to talk to the report.
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/20260417.Chat-with-the-report-Malaria-Turning-the-Tide-Community-Action-and-Collective-Impact-NotebookLM-1.png?resize=1392%2C832&ssl=1\")
Official guidelines tell health workers what to do about malaria.
\n\n\n\nThey cannot capture the daily reality of implementing control measures in a village during the rainy season, in a clinic where the rapid diagnostic tests have run out, or in a community where families use bed nets for fishing because the river feeds their children.
\n\n\n\nMalaria: Turning the tide is built from the voluntary contributions of frontline health workers who responded to a set of questions before the 11th Teach to Reach event. Their answers, in English and French, were analysed into eight thematic chapters covering personal experience, local disease trends, treatment, bed nets, vector control, vaccination, community action, and what governments should do next.
\n\n\n\nIt is a record of what health workers told each other, very different from a summary of what experts think health workers need.
\n\n\n\nMany contributors have had malaria themselves, often more than once, and have watched it move through their own households.
\n\n\n\nChinonye Sussan Nkemakolam, Public Health Nutritionist, Ministry of Health, Imo State, Nigeria:
\n\n\n\n\u201cI personally had an episode where I had this malaria and took virtually all prescribed drugs given by my doctor and injections and infusions to no avail.I felt I was going to die from this dreaded disease, but somehow I and my children survived it.\u201d
\n\n\n\nMuntumaladi Kasabutu Edna, Physician, Ministry of Health, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo:
\n\n\n\n\u201cMy community in general, and my family in particular, do not go more than two weeks without someone being struck down by malaria.\u201d
\n\n\n\nBisimwa Muzusa Emmanuel, Physician, Ministry of Health, Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo:
\n\n\n\n\u201cMy own family has been affected by malaria, and this year alone, three of my children (aged 1, 3 and 5) have suffered from it, despite sleeping under mosquito nets, and the youngest has even been hospitalized. This has been a period of psychological and financial upheaval.\u201d
\n\n\n\nClimate change is not an abstraction in these accounts. It is changing when and where mosquitoes bite, and health workers are adapting faster than the textbooks.
\n\n\n\nJoseph Gyebi-Buaben, Public health worker, Ministry of Health, Dormaa East, Ghana:
\n\n\n\n\u201cWe have always learnt that Anopheles bite at night and rest during the day but this has changed. I think our usual approach and thinking about mosquitoes needs to shift to this new dynamic which will help us eliminate and eradicate malaria.\u201d
\n\n\n\nWhen local efforts work, they work because communities co-own them. Maxwell Owusu, Research Coordinator, Ministry of Health, Kumasi, Ghana:
\n\n\n\n\u201cI noticed changes when our community hospital reported a significant 35% drop in malaria cases compared to the previous year. Residents attributed it to successful health campaigns organized by the regional and district health workers, a noticeable decrease in community stagnant water sources due to improved drainage maintenance, and increasing access to bed nets.\u201d
\n\n\n\nDr Amisi Nyengo Gilbert, Public health expert, Ministry of Health, Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo:
\n\n\n\n\u201cWhat worked was the active involvement of local chiefs and community leaders in raising awareness. Trust they inspire has helped to reinforce the adoption of preventive behaviour.\u201d
\n\n\n\nAnd for many participants, the event itself changed how they understand the disease they thought they already knew. Sarah Kamangu Meta, Community health worker, Mont-Amba district, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo:
\n\n\n\n\u201cBefore, I did not master the subject in detail, and I did not see malaria as a disease to avoid since most people are already used to it. Following this training I changed my way of seeing it.\u201d
\n\n\n\nAdeleye Akeem Oladele, Oyo State Primary Health Care Board, Nigeria:
\n\n\n\n\u201cParticipating in Teach to Reach broadened my perspective, helping me see my world differently. I realized malaria\u2019s intricate links with climate, education, economics and social justice.\u201d
\n\n\n\nRead together, the contributions describe a malaria response that is more stuck than any dashboard suggests.
\n\n\n\nWhat the contributors keep returning to is that none of these tools work alone, and none of them work without the trust of the community.
\n\n\n\nGlobal malaria mortality has plateaued.
\n\n\n\nThe World Health Organization has called for reinvigorated global efforts to curb the rising threat.
\n\n\n\nFunding is tightening.
\n\n\n\nDrug and insecticide resistance are spreading.
\n\n\n\nIn 2024, an estimated 610,000 people died from malaria, mostly young children in sub-Saharan Africa.
\n\n\n\nIn this context, the stagnation is not primarily a biology problem or a technology problem.
\n\n\n\nIt is a problem of whose knowledge counts in the design of the response.
\n\n\n\nA recent analysis by Reda Sadki and Charlotte Mbuh argued that the malaria plateau is at its core a workforce crisis, and that the health workers closest to communities are the most underused source of operational intelligence the response has.
\n\n\n\nAn earlier article on subnational tailoring showed how the gap between national plans and local implementation is precisely where experiential knowledge becomes decisive.
\n\n\n\nAnd a new evaluation of peer learning for malaria national programme staff found that a single two-hour peer event with more than 1,700 health workers from 46 countries outperformed a four-month programme on professional influence, practice impact, and worldview change.
\n\n\n\nMalaria: Turning the tide puts that argument on a concrete footing. It is the raw material of a different way of working.
\n\n\n\nThe report is not a set of prescriptions.
\n\n\n\nIt does not ask anyone to copy what someone else did in another country.
\n\n\n\nIt asks health workers to read what their peers are doing, notice what resonates with their own setting, and adapt.
\n\n\n\nA community health worker in Cameroon put the logic plainly in her reflection after the event. Boubakari Hamadou, NGO, Maroua, Cameroon:
\n\n\n\n\u201cMy participation allowed me to understand the realities elsewhere and to know that the challenges I encounter are also possible elsewhere.\u201d
\n\n\n\nThat sentence is the organising principle of the whole report.
\n\n\n\nThe problems are shared.
\n\n\n\nThe solutions are local.
\n\n\n\nThe learning has to move sideways, peer to peer, to travel at all.
\n\n\n\nMalaria: Turning the tide is the first output from a new TGLF collaboration with the Gates Foundation to strengthen malaria care in West and Central Africa by supporting the health providers who actually deliver it. The initiative will organise thousands of public and private sector health workers into peer problem-solving networks focused on data quality and use, private sector integration, and the introduction of new vector control tools including gene drive. Further insights reports will follow over the next twenty-four months. The 12th Teach to Reach event will be held later in 2026 and will continue to listen to what the frontline has to say.
\n\n\n\nBoth versions are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
\n\n\n\nThe Geneva Learning Foundation is a Swiss non-profit that connects more than 80,000 health practitioners in over 137 countries through peer learning networks designed to turn frontline experience into action. Its Teach to Reach events connect thousands of health workers from the Global South together online to share what is working in their communities and to learn from each other.
\n\n\n\nClaude Cardot claude.cardot@learning.foundation +41 77 231 96 91
\n","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/t604g-66n28","funding_references":null,"guid":"https://redasadki.me/?p=23340","id":"1cab20bf-b7af-4950-af7b-5935a182f1bb","image":"https://redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Malaria-turning-the-tide.jpg","images":[{"height":"300","sizes":"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px","src":"https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/T2R-EN-Malaria-Turning-the-tide.zenodo.15126588-COVER.jpg?resize=225%2C300&ssl=1","srcset":"https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/T2R-EN-Malaria-Turning-the-tide.zenodo.15126588-COVER.jpg?resize=225%2C300&ssl=1, https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/T2R-EN-Malaria-Turning-the-tide.zenodo.15126588-COVER.jpg?w=360&ssl=1","width":"225"},{"height":"832","sizes":"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px","src":"https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/20260417.Chat-with-the-report-Malaria-Turning-the-Tide-Community-Action-and-Collective-Impact-NotebookLM-1.png?resize=1392%2C832&ssl=1","srcset":"https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/20260417.Chat-with-the-report-Malaria-Turning-the-Tide-Community-Action-and-Collective-Impact-NotebookLM-1.png?w=1392&ssl=1, https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/20260417.Chat-with-the-report-Malaria-Turning-the-Tide-Community-Action-and-Collective-Impact-NotebookLM-1.png?resize=300%2C179&ssl=1, https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/20260417.Chat-with-the-report-Malaria-Turning-the-Tide-Community-Action-and-Collective-Impact-NotebookLM-1.png?resize=768%2C459&ssl=1","width":"1392"}],"indexed":true,"indexed_at":1776438747,"language":"en","parent_doi":null,"published_at":1776429467,"reference":[],"registered_at":0,"relationships":[],"rid":"27rbq-y7q05","status":"active","summary":"\n Geneva, 17 April 2026\n\n\u2013 The Geneva Learning Foundation releases the first peer-generated evidence base from more than a thousand frontline health workers on what is working, what is failing, and what needs to change in the fight against malaria.","tags":["Global Health","The Geneva Learning Foundation","Continuous Learning","Health Worker Voices","Learning Culture"],"title":"Turning the tide: a new insights report demonstrates why health worker knowledge is critical to ending malaria","updated_at":1776438584,"url":"https://redasadki.me/2026/04/17/turning-the-tide-a-new-insights-report-demonstrates-why-health-worker-knowledge-is-critical-to-ending-malaria/","version":"v1"}},{"document":{"abstract":"\u201cIf she still has the will to learn, and there is support to help her, who are we to stop her?\u201d Those words came from a traditional leader in Bauchi State, Nigeria. A man who had previously opposed girls returning to school after becoming mothers.","archive_url":null,"authors":[{"affiliation":[{"id":"https://ror.org/04h13ss13","name":"The Geneva Learning Foundation"}],"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Sadki","given":"Reda","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4051-0606"}],"blog":{"archive_collection":null,"archive_host":null,"archive_prefix":null,"archive_timestamps":null,"authors":null,"canonical_url":null,"category":"educationalSciences","community_id":"7e26491f-41c6-4665-9088-5aa6643a1ba8","created_at":1731211871,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Learning to make a difference","doi":null,"doi_as_guid":false,"favicon":null,"feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://redasadki.me/feed/atom/","filter":null,"funding":null,"generator":"WordPress","generator_raw":"WordPress 6.7.1","home_page_url":"https://redasadki.me","id":"88b8caba-b485-4654-96ce-a21547abaab3","indexed":true,"issn":null,"language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","mastodon":"https://techhub.social/@redasadki","prefix":"10.59350","registered_at":0,"relative_url":null,"ror":null,"secure":true,"slug":"redasadki","status":"active","subfield":"3304","subfield_validated":null,"title":"Reda Sadki","updated_at":1776414966.842998,"use_api":true,"use_mastodon":false,"user_id":"0d34dfde-a007-4ec9-9bc6-7b0318fa2c5e"},"blog_name":"Reda Sadki","blog_slug":"redasadki","content_html":"\n\u201cIf she still has the will to learn, and there is support to help her, who are we to stop her?\u201d
\n\n\n\nThose words came from a traditional leader in Bauchi State, Nigeria.
\n\n\n\nA man who had previously opposed girls returning to school after becoming mothers.
\n\n\n\nHe said them out loud, in a room full of community members, during a dialogue session led by TGLF Scholar Rashida Musa Mukaddas.
\n\n\n\nMinutes earlier, Rashida had shared the story of an adolescent mother from a non-formal learning center.
\n\n\n\nA girl who had been forced out of school but still dreamed of becoming a teacher.
\n\n\n\nRashida had just completed a TGLF peer learning session on influencing norms.
\n\n\n\nShe had listened and reflected on how fellow practitioners had successfully responded to such situations.
\n\n\n\nSo she walked into that room with a different approach than she had used before.
\n\n\n\n\u201cAs I spoke, the room shifted,\u201d she wrote.
\n\n\n\nA belief that had governed that community for generations bent in a single meeting.
\n\n\n\nThis is one story among 222 shared in two days by our Alumni.
\n\n\n\nTo mark our tenth anniversary, we asked TGLF Scholars two questions.
\n\n\n\nThe first: share your TGLF story.
\n\n\n\nTell us how participation has changed you and the people you serve.
\n\n\n\nGet specific.
\n\n\n\nThink of a moment that stands out.
\n\n\n\nWhat happened?
\n\n\n\nWhat were the concrete results?
\n\n\n\nThe second: what do you want from The Geneva Learning Foundation in the future?
\n\n\n\nThe responses were extraordinary, in volume and in substance.
\n\n\n\nScholars from across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe wrote back.
\n\n\n\nTheir stories span vaccination, neglected tropical diseases, mental health and psychosocial support, gender-based violence, humanitarian response, and health systems leadership.
\n\n\n\nWhat stands out is not the range of topics.
\n\n\n\nIt is the pattern of outcomes that Scholars themselves describe as exceeding what they thought possible.
\n\n\n\nMarcel Muntu Ilunga, a public health expert working in a displaced community in DR Congo with no roads and no dedicated budget, wrote: \u201cAll 93 children aged 0 to 23 months were vaccinated within 30 days of the action plan.\u201d
\n\n\n\nHe did it using a positive deviance approach, learned from peers who explained how they had actually done it, \u201cenlisting model parents to raise awareness throughout the settlement.\u201d
\n\n\n\nOlenga Okitengeno Rita, a community health worker in Kinshasa, described the same kind of resourcefulness at scale.
\n\n\n\n\u201cThe challenge was immense: we had no dedicated budget and no significant logistical resources.\u201d
\n\n\n\nShe mobilized community chiefs and field workers on her own initiative.
\n\n\n\n\u201cWe managed to identify 121 children who had slipped through the vaccination system.
\n\n\n\nWithout any external financial resources, but with unwavering determination, we reached 80% of those children.\u201d
\n\n\n\nThen she did it again in another health zone: \u201c79 children identified and over 80% vaccinated. This success proves that technical skills and human commitment can compensate for a lack of resources.\u201d
\n\n\n\nDr. Julien Kingombe Kambale joined the Foundation in 2019 during the Ebola response in North Kivu.
\n\n\n\n\u201cThe Foundation changed the way I think by encouraging me to share both my successes and my challenges,\u201d he wrote.
\n\n\n\nThe result: \u201cI was able to reach 25,000 zero-dose children and reduce missed opportunities.\u201d
\n\n\n\nBrigitte Meugang, a nurse in Cameroon, described what happened after she joined a TGLF programme on neglected tropical diseases.
\n\n\n\nShe trained 80 staff at her hospital and 40 health facilities in her area.
\n\n\n\nThen she followed the patients herself.
\n\n\n\n\u201cOf eleven patients I personally followed, nine achieved full recovery and two were able to conceive and give birth. This remains something extraordinary for me.\u201d
\n\n\n\nAcross nearly every response, the same sequence appears: a Scholar encounters a problem that existing approaches cannot solve, engages with peers through TGLF, and then does something different on the ground.
\n\n\n\nDr. Bidilu Charles, a pharmacist in Kinshasa, described building a peer learning practice from nothing.
\n\n\n\n\u201cWe created a working group with colleagues where we communicate by WhatsApp every morning and every evening for about ten minutes. We started by discussing the quality of medical prescriptions circulating in our area.\u201d By collecting incorrect prescriptions and studying them together, \u201cthis exercise forced each of us to discover our own gaps.\u201d
\n\n\n\nToday, they run awareness campaigns for prescribers across peripheral areas.
\n\n\n\nAcheampong Kudom, a public health specialist in Ghana, faced a religious group refusing HPV vaccination.
\n\n\n\nHis team wanted to either ignore the group or invoke the law.
\n\n\n\nInstead, he drew on something a colleague had shared during a Teach to Reach session.
\n\n\n\n\u201cSo instead of going after them on the powers of our public health act, I resorted to listening to their reasons, showed genuine concern for their beliefs, and got insights on how to tailor our HPV communications to their understanding. That day, they did not agree to the vaccination, but subsequently, a significant number of them agreed to get their children vaccinated.\u201d
\n\n\n\nRoody Jacques, a logistician in Haiti, described a transformation in himself.
\n\n\n\n\u201cWith the insecurity taking hold in Haiti, I used to tell myself that if vaccines were not reaching health facilities, it was not my fault.\u201d
\n\n\n\nThen he joined the Foundation.
\n\n\n\n\u201cI quickly understood that this attitude was not acceptable. Since then, I have thrown myself body and soul into ensuring supply, regardless of the security situation, which is currently at its lowest point.\u201d
\n\n\n\nAndr\u00e9 Claude Mukinayi Kalamba, a nurse in Kalemie, DR Congo, put it in a single image: \u201cI climbed into a makeshift canoe for the very first time to vaccinate a population on the other side of a riverbank. The Foundation helped me find the courage to go and help others. The result was that this population, which had been hostile to vaccination, was vaccinated without any problems.\u201d
\n\n\n\nSeveral Scholars described something harder to quantify than vaccination numbers, but perhaps more consequential: a fundamental shift in how they see their own role.
\n\n\n\nTitus Kipchirchir Kolongei, a consultant working across multiple countries, wrote: \u201cThe single most transformative thing TGLF gave me is a conviction I carry into every field assignment: no challenge is too large to be solved. Someone, somewhere, has already faced it. The question is whether I am humble enough to look, listen, and learn from them.\u201d
\n\n\n\nHe named the shift precisely: \u201cBefore TGLF, I was a strong technician. After TGLF, I became a learning leader.\u201d
\n\n\n\nKouatchouang Adrienne Vanessa, a public health specialist in Cameroon, described how months of polio vaccination campaigns hit a wall.
\n\n\n\n\u201cThe population was becoming increasingly resistant to vaccination.
\n\n\n\nDespite all our efforts, we felt our messages were no longer getting through as they once had.\u201d
\n\n\n\nThrough TGLF, she learned something she had not expected. \u201cI learned something fundamental: how to put words to my experience, share what I truly live through on the ground, and above all, listen to others. I am no longer only in action. I am also in reflection, sharing, and collective learning.\u201d
\n\n\n\nMarguerite Bosita Saye, a doctor in Lukunga, DR Congo, applied the \u201cfive whys\u201d technique she learned through peer learning. \u201cWhy are children not vaccinated? Because they do not come to the health center. Why? Because parents are not informed or have reservations.\u201d
\n\n\n\nShe traced the chain all the way down to the root: \u201cBecause there was no clear community mobilization strategy adapted to the local context.\u201d
\n\n\n\nKateryna Vyshnevska, a welfare specialist in Ukraine, described how the Foundation\u2019s PFA Accelerator shaped her response to a sensitive case involving a minor during the war.
\n\n\n\n\u201cThis was not abstract learning. It directly shaped the outcome for that child.\u201d
\n\n\n\nThen something unexpected happened.
\n\n\n\n\u201cI began applying simple, practical approaches, like creating \u2019safe corners\u2019 for children, an idea that emerged and grew through peer learning. It spread quickly among practitioners I support and became a small but powerful intervention that others could adapt immediately.\u201d
\n\n\n\nAnd sometimes the impact is carried in a single sentence a Scholar will never forget.
\n\n\n\nArinzechi Ogonna Ijeoma, a pharmacist in Nigeria, wrote: \u201cOne experience I will never forget was when a young person told me, \u2019This is the first time someone has explained this to me without making me feel ashamed.\u2019\u201d
\n\n\n\nThe second question asked Scholars to look ahead.
\n\n\n\nWhat emerged was a declaration of continued commitment paired with specific asks.
\n\n\n\nScholars want more.
\n\n\n\nMore programmes, more depth, more languages, more opportunities to connect with peers across borders.
\n\n\n\nSeveral asked for TGLF to expand into new thematic areas where they see the same peer learning model working.
\n\n\n\nOthers asked for more sustained support after courses end, so that the momentum does not stop when a programme closes.
\n\n\n\nThey want to contribute.
\n\n\n\nMultiple Scholars explicitly offered to take on mentoring and facilitation roles.
\n\n\n\nThey see themselves not as participants waiting for the next course, but as leaders of a movement that keeps growing through their own effort.
\n\n\n\nOlenga Okitengeno Rita described her trajectory in exactly those terms: \u201cThe greatest transformation was my transition to the role of TGLF Congolese movement leader.\u201d
\n\n\n\nThey want recognition of what local expertise can do.
\n\n\n\nAcross the responses, there is a quiet but consistent message.
\n\n\n\nThe solutions already exist in the communities where Scholars work.
\n\n\n\nWhat TGLF provides is not the answer.
\n\n\n\nIt is the structure, the peer connection, and the confidence to act on what they already know.
\n\n\n\nThese are not testimonials written for a report.
\n\n\n\nThey are first-person accounts from health and humanitarian workers describing what they did, where they did it, and what changed as a result.
\n\n\n\nA nurse who crossed a river in a canoe.
\n\n\n\nA pharmacist who built a daily learning practice from ten-minute WhatsApp sessions.
\n\n\n\nA community health worker who reached 80% of missed children with zero funding.
\n\n\n\nA leader who reversed a generation of belief in a single meeting.
\n\n\n\nOver the coming weeks, we will be sharing these voices one at a time across our social media channels.
\n\n\n\nOne story per day, in English and in French.
\n\n\n\nTheir words are the clearest measure of what a decade of peer learning makes possible.
\n","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/hz5a3-4q857","funding_references":null,"guid":"https://redasadki.me/?p=23336","id":"62b902a2-889e-4898-9622-6ad50699e887","image":"https://redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Ten-years-of-peer-learning-and-action.jpg","images":[],"indexed":true,"indexed_at":1776422380,"language":"en","parent_doi":null,"published_at":1776421856,"reference":[],"registered_at":0,"relationships":[],"rid":"811n4-ejc52","status":"active","summary":"\u201cIf she still has the will to learn, and there is support to help her, who are we to stop her?\u201d Those words came from a traditional leader in Bauchi State, Nigeria. A man who had previously opposed girls returning to school after becoming mothers. He said them out loud, in a room full of community members, during a dialogue session led by TGLF Scholar Rashida Musa Mukaddas.","tags":["The Geneva Learning Foundation","Continuous Learning","Global Health","Outcomes","Peer Learning"],"title":"Ten years of peer learning and action: The Geneva Learning Foundation\u2019s Alumni, in their own words","updated_at":1776421870,"url":"https://redasadki.me/2026/04/17/ten-years-of-peer-learning-and-action-the-geneva-learning-foundations-alumni-in-their-own-words/","version":"v1"}},{"document":{"abstract":"The headline number from the WHO Regional Office for Africa\u2019s new report is designed to reassure. Nearly 20 million measles deaths have been averted in the African Region since 2000, and 500 million children have been reached through routine immunization in one generation.","archive_url":null,"authors":[{"affiliation":[{"id":"https://ror.org/04h13ss13","name":"The Geneva Learning Foundation"}],"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Sadki","given":"Reda","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4051-0606"}],"blog":{"archive_collection":null,"archive_host":null,"archive_prefix":null,"archive_timestamps":null,"authors":null,"canonical_url":null,"category":"educationalSciences","community_id":"7e26491f-41c6-4665-9088-5aa6643a1ba8","created_at":1731211871,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Learning to make a difference","doi":null,"doi_as_guid":false,"favicon":null,"feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://redasadki.me/feed/atom/","filter":null,"funding":null,"generator":"WordPress","generator_raw":"WordPress 6.7.1","home_page_url":"https://redasadki.me","id":"88b8caba-b485-4654-96ce-a21547abaab3","indexed":true,"issn":null,"language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","mastodon":"https://techhub.social/@redasadki","prefix":"10.59350","registered_at":0,"relative_url":null,"ror":null,"secure":true,"slug":"redasadki","status":"active","subfield":"3304","subfield_validated":null,"title":"Reda Sadki","updated_at":1776414966.842998,"use_api":true,"use_mastodon":false,"user_id":"0d34dfde-a007-4ec9-9bc6-7b0318fa2c5e"},"blog_name":"Reda Sadki","blog_slug":"redasadki","content_html":"\nThe headline number from the WHO Regional Office for Africa\u2019s new report is designed to reassure.
\n\n\n\nNearly 20 million measles deaths have been averted in the African Region since 2000, and 500 million children have been reached through routine immunization in one generation.
\n\n\n\nGavi\u2019s press release amplifies that figure, and Dr. Sania Nishtar calls it evidence of the \u201cimmense life-saving power of vaccines when immunisation is prioritised as a matter of policy.\u201d
\n\n\n\nThe second number is less reassuring.
\n\n\n\nCoverage with the second dose of measles-containing vaccine in the African Region reached 55% in 2024, and coverage with the first dose has stagnated around 70% for a decade.
\n\n\n\nMeasles transmission cannot be interrupted until both doses exceed roughly 95% in every community, not just on average.
\n\n\n\nThe report buries this tension in careful language about progress being \u201cuneven, and even slowing.\u201d
\n\n\n\nWhat is significant in the WHO AFRO report is the recognition, on page after page, that the African Region is now off track for six of the seven Immunization Agenda 2030 impact goals, and that no vaccine in the Region has coverage above 90 percent.
\n\n\n\nMeasles, which the report explicitly treats as \u201ca tracer of immunization programme performance,\u201d is telling us something uncomfortable about what vaccines alone can and cannot do.
\n\n\n\nThe report is rigorous on outputs and careful on inputs.
\n\n\n\nIt documents 44 countries that have introduced the second measles dose, 622 million supplementary doses delivered, and three sub-Saharan African states, Cabo Verde, Mauritius and Seychelles, achieving measles and rubella elimination in 2025.
\n\n\n\nIt also documents a resurgence of large or protracted measles outbreaks between 2022 and 2024, with reactive campaigns in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, and outbreak preparedness plans in 14 priority countries.
\n\n\n\nWhat the report largely leaves out is the social infrastructure on which all of this depends.
\n\n\n\nThe foreword by WHO\u2019s Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Mohamed Yakub Janabi, reminds readers that \u201cbehind the numbers in the report, are children and their parents,\u201d and that \u201cthe real measure of progress is the wellbeing and overall health of our communities.\u201d
\n\n\n\nBut when the text turns to challenges, it lists population growth, weak health systems, climate change, humanitarian crises and political instability.
\n\n\n\nTrust appears nowhere on that list, and vaccine confidence is not measured anywhere in the report.
\n\n\n\nThat omission matters because the global landscape has changed.
\n\n\n\nGlobally, the World Health Organization reported in late 2025 that measles deaths fell by 88 percent between 2000 and 2024, and that more than 60 million deaths have been averted by measles vaccination since 1974.
\n\n\n\nIn the same breath, WHO warned that cases are surging, with 30 million children left under-protected in 2024 alone.
\n\n\n\nNature called the pattern a \u201cspike\u201d across measles, polio and tuberculosis, tied not to biology but to eroding immunization and eroding trust.
\n\n\n\nSome observers describe the United States situation bluntly as \u201cthe perfect storm: measles resurgence in an era of vaccine disinformation and the dismantling of public health.\u201d
\n\n\n\nThis is the context the AFRO report does not fully name.
\n\n\n\nA global right-wing and libertarian backlash against vaccination, amplified by the COVID-19 infodemic and increasingly coordinated with populist politics, has collapsed measles coverage in communities where it was once taken for granted, first in Europe and North America, now spreading through digital networks that respect no border.
\n\n\n\nThe scientific consensus that measles-containing vaccines are safe and effective has not moved.
\n\n\n\nWhat has moved is the social contract around them.
\n\n\n\nHeidi Larson, the anthropologist who founded the Vaccine Confidence Project, has spent two decades making a point that global health institutions have been slow to absorb.
\n\n\n\n\u201cWe do not have a misinformation problem,\u201d she writes. \u201cWe have a relationship problem.\u201d Misinformation can be deleted, she argues, but the distrust that allows it to stick is what remains.
\n\n\n\nHer book Stuck traces vaccine rumors from 19th-century smallpox protests to 21st-century polio boycotts, and concludes that digital media has amplified risk perception without being its single cause.
\n\n\n\nLarson\u2019s team has documented how quickly confidence can collapse when trust is broken.
\n\n\n\nAfter the 2017 Dengvaxia controversy in the Philippines, the share of respondents who \u201cstrongly agreed\u201d that vaccines are important fell from 93 percent to 32 percent in three years, and strong agreement that vaccines are safe fell from 82 percent to 21 percent.
\n\n\n\nThat collapse rippled into measles and polio uptake, not only dengue.
\n\n\n\nThe lesson, Larson insists, is that confidence is a leading indicator, not a lagging one, and that \u201can extraordinary effort will be needed to sustain confidence in vaccines, given the unprecedented level of misinformation being propagated about them, even from official sources.\u201d
\n\n\n\nFramed through Larson\u2019s work, the WHO AFRO report reads differently.
\n\n\n\nThe report\u2019s quiet pivot from the \u201cnational\u201d to the \u201csub-national\u201d in its concluding paragraphs is not just a technical recommendation.
\n\n\n\n\u201cFocus on building or rebuilding resilient immunization systems at sub-national level is central to containing prevalent immunisation inequities and sustaining coverage at no less than 90 percent,\u201d the report states.
\n\n\n\nRead alongside Larson, that sentence is an acknowledgement that the remaining work may be less about cold chains or vial sizes and more about relationships between health workers and the communities they serve, built or broken one district at a time.
\n\n\n\nThe most direct evidence that trust, not technology, is the binding constraint comes from the health workers themselves.
\n\n\n\nAt Teach to Reach, hundreds of practitioners have contributed structured experiences of measles outbreaks and prevention across more than a dozen countries.
\n\n\n\nTheir accounts read like field notes from a long negotiation over credibility.
\n\n\n\nConsider Dr. Khalid Hussain Memon, a public health specialist in Sindh, Pakistan, describing a single street of seven \u201crefusal houses\u201d in Golimar.
\n\n\n\nAfter a measles case in the neighborhood led to severe post-measles pneumonia in an unvaccinated child, Memon\u2019s team stayed in contact with the family through the child\u2019s recovery.
\n\n\n\n\u201cI and my team remained in touch with parents of the child,\u201d he recounted. \u201cAfter recovery of the child, we contacted the mother of the child and made her realize that all her sufferings were due to non-vaccination of her child against measles. She later became our social mobilizer and visited all refusal houses for measles vaccine, along with vaccination teams, and told them her story.\u201d
\n\n\n\nA similar point comes from Madagascar, where a UNICEF social and behavior change consultant, Souleymane Kagambega, put it almost lyrically. \u201cThere were no more eloquent people than the victims of measles within the communities. There was no better lesson for caregivers than the suffering these children around us were experiencing.\u201d
\n\n\n\nNeither of these statements fits comfortably in an outbreak report.
\n\n\n\nNeither would appear in a coverage table.
\n\n\n\nBoth describe the mechanism by which population immunity is actually rebuilt after it has been lost.
\n\n\n\nThe same theme surfaces in Cameroon, where a laboratory scientist described being surprised not by the outbreak itself but by the silence that preceded it.
\n\n\n\n\u201cWhat surprised us was the fact that that the health facility had had cases previously and did not report them.\u201d
\n\n\n\nReporting, like vaccination, is a behavior that depends on trust.
\n\n\n\nIt collapses first at the edges of systems, and it recovers last.
\n\n\n\nCommunity-based surveillance, which the Teach to Reach contributors discuss repeatedly, is the operational form of this insight.
\n\n\n\nCommunity health workers, volunteers, and in one Nigerian account, \u201clocal medicine vendors\u201d around a hospital, are trained to recognize fever and rash and to alert formal services.
\n\n\n\nWhen Dr. Mulungula Walasa describes a campaign in the Kalambayi Health Zone of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, his emphasis is relational, not technical.
\n\n\n\n\u201cThis approach allowed the local community to take ownership of the campaign and thus made it possible to vaccinate a large number of children.\u201d
\n\n\n\nSome formalists may dismiss such field stories as feel-good anecdotes.
\n\n\n\nWe posit that they are significant, credible evidence of the social contract around vaccination being renegotiated in real time, in precisely the districts where the WHO AFRO report concedes coverage is lowest.
\n\n\n\nThe Lancet correspondence on peer learning in immunisation programmes, published in late 2024, frames the problem at the national level.
\n\n\n\nImmunization leaders operate in dynamic sociopolitical contexts where evidence is incomplete and decisions cannot wait for the next randomized trial.
\n\n\n\nPeer learning across national programmes, the authors argue, is the only credible way to align strategy with implementation reality.
\n\n\n\nWe need to extend that argument to the local leaders who are the interface with communities.
\n\n\n\n\u201cImplementation challenges are situated, and solved, at the local levels,\u201d we wrote in 2025, and peer learning that stops at national EPI managers misses precisely the layer where trust is built and measles is stopped.
\n\n\n\nOur account of Gavi-supported, TGLF-facilitated work in C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire and Nigeria documents thousands of sub-national practitioners contributing detailed experiences and analyzing each other\u2019s strategies at scale.
\n\n\n\nThe C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire case study, where Mathieu N\u2019Guessan\u2019s team raised second-dose measles coverage in Bouak\u00e9 North-East from under 30 percent to 96 percent in a year, is a story of re-establishing relationships with community health workers, religious leaders, and caregivers who had never met MCV2 before.
\n\n\n\nThis is where the AFRO report, the Lancet, and Larson\u2019s trust research converge.
\n\n\n\nNational peer learning tells ministries what other ministries are doing.
\n\n\n\nSub-national peer learning tells districts what other districts have tried, including with refusal houses in Golimar, riverine communities in Bakassi, or koranic schools in Dawakin Tofa.
\n\n\n\nOnly the second can repair the relationship problem that underpins trust, because relationships are always local.
\n\n\n\nThe immediate implication for WHO, Gavi, and ministries of health is that measles coverage targets cannot be hit with supply-side instruments alone.
\n\n\n\nCampaign counts and dose deliveries are necessary, and the AFRO report documents them in detail.
\n\n\n\nThey are not sufficient.
\n\n\n\nVaccine confidence, in both Larson\u2019s and Teach to Reach\u2019s evidence, behaves more like a financial market than a pipeline, and it is volatile under political pressure.
\n\n\n\nFor donors, the implication is uncomfortable.
\n\n\n\nThe hardest-to-reach children, whom the AFRO report names as the largest remaining gap, live in communities where trust in health services is thinnest, where rumors travel fastest, and where returns on investment are measured in years, not quarters.
\n\n\n\nFinancing structures that reward short-term campaign coverage are poorly matched to this work.
\n\n\n\nFinancing that supports sustained peer learning networks at district level, and listens systematically to what frontline workers actually experience, is better matched but institutionally harder to justify.
\n\n\n\nFor immunization leaders specifically, three practical consequences follow.
\n\n\n\nThe WHO AFRO report closes with an appeal for continued investment and strong political commitment.
\n\n\n\nThat appeal is correct, and overdue.
\n\n\n\nIt is also incomplete.
\n\n\n\nThe measles resurgence of the 2020s is not a failure of vaccines, which work as well as they ever have, nor primarily a failure of supply, which is better than at any point in history.
\n\n\n\nIt is a failure of trust, accumulating slowly in some places and collapsing suddenly in others, and it is being actively cultivated by political movements that see public health as an adversary rather than a commons.
\n\n\n\nThe question the report does not ask, and that the global immunization community can no longer avoid, is this one.
\n\n\n\nIf measles is the tracer of programme performance, what is the tracer of trust, and who is accountable for measuring it before the next outbreak arrives?
\n\n\n\nThe Geneva Learning Foundation offers a free peer learning course built entirely on the measles experiences shared at Teach to Reach. In about six hours of self-paced learning, health workers study what actually worked in other districts across early case detection, community engagement, vaccine supply management, second-dose coverage, and outbreak preparedness. Participants reflect on their own context and exchange feedback with colleagues facing similar challenges. The course is available in English and French, and it is open to anyone working in immunization or primary health care.
\n\n\n\nAnother day, another new model. Opus 4.7 is out. Right away it\u2019s immediately noticeable how it shuts down pretty much any conversation about biology that even remotely appears dual-use. These prompts triggered a safety shutdown: \u201cWhat is the role of gain- and loss-of-function mutations in pathogen evolution?\u201d \u2026 \u201cGive me media conditions for culturing SARS-CoV-2\u201d \u2026 \u201cWhat factors influence whether a pathogen spreads via droplets versus aerosols?\u201d and several others I tried. What\u2019s interesting is, as soon as you get a refusal from Opus 4.7, Claude will invite you to ask the same question on Sonnet 4, which happily answers.
Meanwhile, OpenAI released GPT-Rosalind, their frontier reasoning model built to support research across biology, drug discovery, and translational medicine.
Arjun Krishnan: What is the PhD actually for?. A response to Prachee Avasthi\u2019s \u201cFree the PhD\u201d and a self-critique of Krishnan\u2019s own preprint on sequencing AI use in doctoral training. Both pieces agree that PhD programs waste protected time on the wrong things, but Krishnan argues that compressing content acquisition into AI-assisted sessions risks producing scientists who can articulate a field\u2019s frontier without being able to navigate it. His resolution: the durable case for foundational expertise isn\u2019t \u201cAI can\u2019t do this yet\u201d but that science requires humans who can be genuinely accountable for claims, direct inquiry toward questions worth asking, and provide real transparency about their reasoning. See also:
NIH Highlighted Topic: Research on Chatbots and their Usage. NIH posted a new Highlighted Topic (not a NOFO, but a signal of where institutes want to see investigator-initiated applications) on the benefits and harms of chatbot use in health contexts. The scope is broad: automation bias, behavioral dependency, substitution for professional care, effects on decision-making and autonomy, and safeguards for at-risk populations. Lots of participating ICOs. If you\u2019re doing any research on LLM-based tools and health outcomes, this is NIH telling you there\u2019s a welcome mat out. Apply through a PA; topic expires April 2027.
![\"\"](\"https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0-Ub!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7ec7a2c-cea3-4c81-946c-8d0d98dd3c68_1216x923.png\")
Randy Au: Code review for data (and non-SWE) folks. A practical, opinionated walkthrough of how Au approaches code review as a data person rather than a software engineer, with the core stance that your job is to help the code get better, not gatekeeping. He also makes a good observation about how LLMs have changed the review process: they\u2019re useful for translating unfamiliar code into plain language so you can engage at the architectural level, but they still can\u2019t substitute for a human who understands what the team is actually trying to accomplish.
Ally Piechowski: The Git Commands I Run Before Reading Any Code. 5 git one-liners that give you a diagnostic picture of a codebase before you open a single file: churn hotspots, bus factor, bug clusters, commit velocity, and revert frequency. Pairs nicely with the Randy Au code review piece above, since both are about figuring out what\u2019s actually going on in someone else\u2019s code before you start forming opinions.
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Separately, the New Yorker and the New York Times published very interesting long reads about Sam Altman and Satoshi Nakamoto. First, in the New Yorker, Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz: Sam Altman May Control Our Future. Can He Be Trusted?. Their investigation draws on interviews with more than 100 people in Altman\u2019s orbit. The portrait that emerges is of someone with an unusual combination of interpersonal charm and indifference to the consequences of deception. Altman responded with a blog post acknowledging mistakes while framing the broader AI competition as a \u201cring of power\u201d dynamic that distorts everyone\u2019s behavior.
Writing in the New York Times, John Carreyrou: Who Is Satoshi Nakamoto? My Quest to Unmask Bitcoin\u2019s Creator. Carreyrou broke the Theranos story spent over a year on this investigation and came away pointing at Adam Back, the British cryptographer who invented Hashcash (the proof-of-work system Bitcoin\u2019s mining is built on). Back went quiet on cryptography mailing lists during Satoshi\u2019s active years, resurfaced weeks after Satoshi vanished, and had written extensively about nearly every technical element of Bitcoin years before it launched. A stylometric analysis of nonstandard hyphenation patterns across hundreds of crypto mailing list authors matched Back. There was a really good hour-long episode of The Daily covering this one.
Comparing Posit Assistant and Claude Code: How does Posit Assistant differ from Claude Code? Sara Altman and Simon Couch demonstrate three ways Posit Assistant differs from Claude Code for data tasks: built-in R session access, easier data visualization workflow, and support for iterative data analysis.
: A professor's use case for AI generated papers. Cunningham bans AI from his stats and econometrics courses because he notes the 10-20 hour problem sets and the frustration of failing are where learning actually happens. But he found one use case he's comfortable with: he had Claude Code write three complete example papers (descriptive, predictive, causal inference) to illustrate what each genre looks like as a finished manuscript, because writing those himself would have been enormously time-intensive and he's not confident he'd do the descriptive and predictive genres well. Scott uses AI constantly in his own work but won't assign it to students, and he's honest that the line he's drawing is pragmatic, not principled.
Martin Frigaard: Who is this for? A reflection on how IDE-integrated LLM assistants are changing the way Martin thinks about problems, not just how he solves them. Complementary cognitive artifacts (maps, the abacus) transfer understanding you can retain after the tool is gone, while competitive ones (calculators, GPS, LLMs) leave you no better than when you started. Martin finds he actually prefers working in his restricted environment without IDE assistants, where communicating with an LLM looks more like composing a letter to a pen pal than approving autocomplete suggestions.
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The Promise of AI and AI Agents: Another installment from at . This video discusses When AI can act and not just advise: who should be in control, and where does the value actually land?
Simon Couch: LLMs running on my laptop can drive coding agents now. A follow-up to Couch\u2019s December post where no local model could complete even a simple refactoring eval. Four months later, Qwen 3.5 and Gemma 4 both score 9/10, matching frontier models on the same benchmark. Neither is close to Opus 4.6 as a general coding partner, but both run at ~53 tok/s on a 48GB M4 Pro, which is surprisingly close to Sonnet 4.6\u2019s API throughput, and that\u2019s enough to keep you unblocked on a flight with miserable WiFi.
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New papers & preprints:
Fast and accurate multiple-protein-sequence alignment at scale with FAMSA2
BioClaw: Human-Bot Research Collaboration Ecosystems in Group Chats
SkillClaw: Let Skills Evolve Collectively with Agentic Evolver
PaperOrchestra: A Multi-Agent Framework for Automated AI Research Paper Writing
Accelerated long-read variant calling with Clair3 for whole-genome sequencing
Our rescue dog, Luka, is a very traumatised soul. He spent eight years living in a shelter, with no home comforts, in the harsh Bosnian climate. He is a constantly anxious boy. Over the course of three years, we have managed to calm him down, to make him into a happy dog, who has a home and is bonded with my wife, Helen (and, to some much lesser extent, me). People have remarked on what a different dog he is, now. He is sociable. He is bouncy and happy. He goes to training classes and does well there, as well as having a whale of a time.
\n![\"An](\"https://eve.gd/images/dogs.jpg\")
But he still gets extremely frightened in certain situations. One of these, for example, is when there are fireworks. These send him cowering and hiding in fear. He hates them. The other example, and the one around which this post will centre, is when the doorbell goes. This can actually be a knock at the door, the doorbell ringing, or somebody just walking up to the house from outside. Our other dog, Robyn, makes this worse by encouraging Luka. But when this happens, he goes into a total, overexcited, barking frenzy that is a combination of fear, anxiety, and excitement all rolled into one. Normally, when this happens, I can calm him down by throwing some treats so he can play the \u201cfind-it\u201d game, or getting him to sit and thereby redirecting his attention into a positive training model.
\nLast Tuesday, I did not do these things, and I was stupid. Instead of trying to calm Luka down first, I instead walked past him when he was in this state, as I was going to the front door to answer it. In his hyper-excited state, he bit me. The bite was bad. I am extremely lean, and so the bite exposed the bone in my leg. As I am immunocompromised, there was a severe infection risk, so it had to be treated carefully. I was taken to hospital. In hospital they did a surgical wash and debridement. Then, because my haemoglobin was already extremely low due to kidney failure, they gave me 3 units of blood transfusion. As I write this, I am planning to go to hospital next week to discuss the potential need for a skin graft surgery on the leg.
\nIf I could have those two seconds again, I would have played this scenario very differently. I am a relatively experienced dog owner and I just forgot for two seconds what I should have been doing, which was to calm Luka before doing anything that involves walking past him when he\u2019s in that state.
\nAnd now, our lives will be altered, and Luka\u2019s life will be altered too, just because of two seconds of stupidity. The first thing we had to contend with was (well-meaning) people telling us that Luka should either be put down or rehomed (the other thing people say, with good intent, is that \u201cMartin\u2019s safety must come first\u201d \u2013 of course, we know that). As the shelter told us though, they would not be able to rehome Luka in the UK after he has been responsible for such a bite. The only rehoming option would be to go back to Bosnia, back to the shelter where he had faced such previous trauma. As for putting Luka to sleep, this is simply not an option. I love this dog. It\u2019s a clich\u00e9, but he is a member of our family. I have spent years gaining his trust and making him feel secure in my presence, even though I am not his favourite human. Furthermore, it is not an option because we must, by contract, consult with the shelter from whom we rehomed him before making such a decision, and, clearly, they would rather take him back than have this outcome.
\nI think quote a few people do not understand why I am happy to continue living with Luka. For many people, all they can see now is a dangerous animal that in their view would be better put to sleep. First, though, I know that in 99% of circumstances, Luka is not dangerous. I also know, in the 1% of times where he could be, how I should behave to handle this; and I messed this up last week. Second, we now have a set of safety practices in our house that means that Luka cannot get to me when he is in any kind of frenzy or defensive mode. Yes, it\u2019s now a total pain, but it is far better to put safety first, over convenience.
\nBut in terms of forgiveness, I do not blame Luka for this accident. It was an unfortunate congregation of circumstances that led to this. I was the one who made a mistake, around a traumatised animal. Also, I should note that I have always taken a calculated risk. Inviting an animal to live in one\u2019s home comes with inherent risks. One of those is that a dog might bite you. This is just part of the decision calculus that you need to make. You can never guarantee that an animal will definitely, under no circumstances, bite.
\nHowever, we now have a series of safety procedures that we will put in place that will mean that hopefully we will never encounter something like this again. Luka will always have a house line/lead/leash on him so that Mrs. Eve can grab him if needed and keep him under control. The dogs will be shut outside if I am around downstairs or even tethered inside if we are all in the same room, just so that if the doorbell goes, Luka cannot, physically, reach me. We are also beginning muzzle training with Luka, and are speaking to the vet next week about some anti-anxiety medications for him. I will never go to the door/walk past Luka when he is in this state, ever again. I will remain seated and look away in a non-threatening manner. We are working on solutions to the doorbell/knock situation. We have a behaviourist in regular contact as this plan evolves.
\nThere is now a great deal of healing to be done. On the one hand, my leg needs to heal and it\u2019s going to take a very, very long time (especially with norovirus and a chest infection on top). On the other hand though, Luka has been deeply traumatised by this event and will require much psychological care and love. He knows that something went wrong at that moment and the atmosphere in the house has not been the same since. The other day he was shaking. Then he has gone into other rooms and hidden. All this despite the fact, I must stress, I did not even tell him off for biting me, let alone raise my voice at him or anything. I simply yelped in pain and then Mrs. Eve pulled him off me, told him \u201cno\u201d firmly, and shut him in the sitting room. You would think, from his terror, that I had attacked him or something! (I assure you, I categorically have not.) But the situation, now, is that we need to give him time to rebuild his trust and confidence. He is going to need days to decompress and then several weeks to settle back into a new pattern of life. From there, I will be able to work once more on training him to trust me and for him to feel comfortable in my presence.
\nAnd this brings me really to the crux of my thinking about dogs. I suppose really, logically, it is very sensible to say that if a dog bites you, it cannot live with you. But with the things I know about Luka, I have come to a different perspective on why we have dogs. We adopt older, slightly difficult dogs who need a home. We could make our lives much easier by adopting younger dogs with a home-life experience. Instead, we have one psychologically traumatised older boy and one older bitch with only three legs, my dear Robyn. We didn\u2019t really pick these dogs because we thought that they would make our lives easier. We instead chose them because we thought that we could give them a better life and they seemed deserving (although there are thousands of deserving dogs and we can only help a select, tiny few). The reward I get from having Luka has been in seeing him grow from a frightened shell of a dog into a confident, loving boy, who was having a great time in life. This is what he gives me. We now, sadly, though, have a serious setback in this personal growth. But I will work with him again to bring him back from this brink and I will not abandon him to a life of frightened misery, torn away from his bonded human, in a harsh climate far away.
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59348/1mp5y-ae341","funding_references":null,"guid":"https://doi.org/10.59348/1mp5y-ae341","id":"ffa94da9-560a-4379-ae0d-0ea0b395fe17","image":"https://eve.gd/images/dogs.jpg","images":[{"alt":"An image of three dogs running towards the camera","src":"https://eve.gd/images/dogs.jpg"}],"indexed":true,"indexed_at":1776433472,"language":"en","parent_doi":null,"published_at":1776384000,"reference":[],"registered_at":0,"relationships":[],"rid":"y1fhe-ygd41","status":"active","summary":"Our rescue dog, Luka, is a very traumatised soul. He spent eight years living in a shelter, with no home comforts, in the harsh Bosnian climate. He is a constantly anxious boy. Over the course of three years, we have managed to calm him down, to make him into a happy dog, who has a home and is bonded with my wife, Helen (and, to some much lesser extent, me). People have remarked on what a different dog he is, now. He is sociable.","tags":[],"title":"Thinking About Dogs","updated_at":1776384000,"url":"https://eve.gd/2026/04/17/thinking-about-dogs/","version":"v1"}},{"document":{"abstract":"The PHP library that renders article citations in Open Journal Systems (OJS) will change maintenance hands from the library\u2019s creator, Sebastian B\u00f6ttger, to PKP. What does citeproc-php do? For those of you unfamiliar, citeproc-php is the server-side library that takes raw article metadata (author names, titles, publication dates, DOIs) and transforms it into formatted citations [\u2026] The post citeproc-php is under new management!","archive_url":null,"authors":[{"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Racy","given":"Famira"}],"blog":{"archive_collection":null,"archive_host":null,"archive_prefix":null,"archive_timestamps":null,"authors":null,"canonical_url":null,"category":"socialScience","community_id":"77c8c2e4-ebda-4e7c-9458-6c06b604344b","created_at":1752226126.418889,"current_feed_url":null,"description":null,"doi":null,"doi_as_guid":false,"favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/77c8c2e4-ebda-4e7c-9458-6c06b604344b/logo","feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://pkp.sfu.ca/feed/atom","filter":null,"funding":null,"generator":"WordPress","generator_raw":"WordPress","home_page_url":"https://pkp.sfu.ca/news/","id":"1fc8db8d-6943-4efd-8a78-7723c41ab59f","indexed":true,"issn":null,"language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","mastodon":null,"prefix":"10.59350","registered_at":0,"relative_url":null,"ror":null,"secure":true,"slug":"pkp","status":"active","subfield":"1710","subfield_validated":null,"title":"Public Knowledge Project","updated_at":1776414866.774471,"use_api":null,"use_mastodon":false,"user_id":null},"blog_name":"Public Knowledge Project","blog_slug":"pkp","content_html":"![\"Stockholm](\"https://pkp.sfu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Citeproc-php-April-2026-WP-May-issue-1024x576.jpg\")
The PHP library that renders article citations in Open Journal Systems (OJS) will change maintenance hands from the library\u2019s creator, Sebastian B\u00f6ttger, to PKP.
\nFor those of you unfamiliar, citeproc-php is the server-side library that takes raw article metadata (author names, titles, publication dates, DOIs) and transforms it into formatted citations using Citation Style Language (CSL) styles including APA, MLA, Chicago, Vancouver, and more.
\nIn OJS, this library works behind the scenes of the Citation Style Language plugin. When a reader clicks \u201cHow to Cite\u201d on an article page, or when a journal manager selects a citation style under Settings, citeproc-php generates the formatted output.
\nFor OJS users: Nothing immediate. Your citation displays will continue working exactly as they do now. The plugin settings in your dashboard remain unchanged.
\nFor developers: The citeproc-php library has moved to the PKP organization under Github and PKP will take an active role in its steering and release management. Little else will change \u2013 PKP would like to continue working with the active contributor community already supporting the library.
\nFor the broader audience: PKP has long benefited from, and frequently contributed to, 3rd-party Free and Open Source (FOSS) libraries like citeproc-php. As good FOSS citizens, PKP recognizes the value of a strong ecosystem of support and contribution; this move to formally maintaining citeproc-php is done in recognition of the need for material support for the tools we all rely upon.
\nThe handover to PKP makes strategic sense since citeproc-php\u2019s primary consumer is OJS and therefore PKP has a strong interest in keeping the library secure and updated.
\nThe PKP team would like to thank Sebiastian B\u00f6ttger for his excellent work supporting the scholarly publishing community for many years!
\nThe handover discussion can be found in GitHub #200. The new pkp/citeproc-php GitHub page can be found here.\u00a0
The post citeproc-php is under new management! appeared first on Public Knowledge Project.
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/r58bv-8dm69","funding_references":null,"guid":"https://pkp.sfu.ca/?p=18764","id":"d8fec180-e406-436f-9a9f-00613a903c03","image":"https://pkp.sfu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Citeproc-php-April-2026-WP-May-issue-1024x576.jpg","images":[{"alt":"Stockholm Archipelago photo by PKP's Jason Nugent represents the distinct yet deeply interconnected nature of landscapes, ecosystems, and infrastructures, a theme of PKP's Community Newsletter, Archipelago.","height":"576","sizes":"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px","src":"https://pkp.sfu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Citeproc-php-April-2026-WP-May-issue-1024x576.jpg","srcset":"https://pkp.sfu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Citeproc-php-April-2026-WP-May-issue-1024x576.jpg, https://pkp.sfu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Citeproc-php-April-2026-WP-May-issue-300x169.jpg, https://pkp.sfu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Citeproc-php-April-2026-WP-May-issue-768x432.jpg, https://pkp.sfu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Citeproc-php-April-2026-WP-May-issue-1536x864.jpg, https://pkp.sfu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Citeproc-php-April-2026-WP-May-issue.jpg","width":"1024"},{"src":"https://pkp.sfu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Citeproc-php-April-2026-WP-May-issue-1024x576.jpg"}],"indexed":true,"indexed_at":1776374604,"language":"en","parent_doi":null,"published_at":1776373941,"reference":[],"registered_at":0,"relationships":[],"rid":"gg4fn-qbc59","status":"active","summary":"\n \n The PHP library that renders article citations in Open Journal Systems (OJS) will change maintenance hands from the library\u2019s creator, Sebastian B\u00f6ttger, to PKP.\n \n\nWhat does citeproc-php do? For those of you unfamiliar, citeproc-php is the server-side library that takes raw article metadata (author names, titles, publication dates, DOIs) and transforms it into formatted citations using Citation Style Language (CSL)","tags":["Community Newsletter","Citations","Citeproc-php","FOSS","Metadata"],"title":"citeproc-php is under new management!","updated_at":1776373941,"url":"https://pkp.sfu.ca/2026/04/16/citeproc-php-is-now-managed-by-pkp/","version":"v1"}},{"document":{"abstract":"Matt and I were discussing a paper from last year, Korneisel and Maddin (2025) on the evolution of the atlas\u2013axis complex. (It\u2019s excellent, by the way. Really comprehensive.) Mike: Atlases are so weird.","archive_url":null,"authors":[{"affiliation":[{"id":"https://ror.org/0524sp257","name":"University of Bristol"}],"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Taylor","given":"Mike","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1003-5675"}],"blog":{"archive_collection":22153,"archive_host":null,"archive_prefix":"https://wayback.archive-it.org/22153/20231105213934/","archive_timestamps":null,"authors":[{"name":"Mike Taylor"}],"canonical_url":null,"category":"earthAndRelatedEnvironmentalSciences","community_id":"0e13541f-417e-46c0-a859-65927249df72","created_at":1675209600,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"SV-POW! ... All sauropod vertebrae, except when we're talking about Open Access. ISSN 3033-3695","doi":null,"doi_as_guid":false,"favicon":null,"feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://svpow.com/feed/atom/","filter":null,"funding":null,"generator":"WordPress.com","generator_raw":"WordPress.com","home_page_url":"https://svpow.com","id":"c6cbbd2e-4675-4680-8a3f-784388009821","indexed":false,"issn":"3033-3695","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","mastodon":null,"prefix":"10.59350","registered_at":1729882329,"relative_url":null,"ror":null,"secure":true,"slug":"svpow","status":"active","subfield":"1911","subfield_validated":true,"title":"Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week","updated_at":1776415343.729556,"use_api":true,"use_mastodon":false,"user_id":"04d03585-c8bb-40f2-9619-5076a5e0aed2"},"blog_name":"Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week","blog_slug":"svpow","content_html":"Matt and I were discussing a paper from last year, Korneisel and Maddin (2025) on the evolution of the atlas\u2013axis complex. (It’s excellent, by the way. Really comprehensive.)
\nMike: Atlases are so weird. It occurs to me that had the nomenclatural dice fallen differently, we might not even consider them vertebrae at all, just as we don’t consider metacarpals to be manual phalanges. We might have considered the axial skeleton to consist of skull, atlas, and a sequence of vertebrae starting with the axis. (And, yes, ribs, chevrons and sternal plates.)
\nMatt: Good point on […] the weirdness of the atlas. The atlas in particular really does feel like an embryonic segmentation error codified and exapted into a useful structure.
\nMike: Your mom is an embryonic segmentation error codified and exapted into a useful structure.
\n\n
Dear Reader,
\n\n\n\nPlease do one thing today.
\n\n\n\nConfirm you will join us for World Malaria Day.
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLearn more about the event here.
\n\n\n\nTo join in our Zoom studio, use this link.
\n\n\n\nYour click is powerful.
\n\n\n\nIt says that you care about ending malaria.
\n\n\n\nIt helps other health workers in your network find the event.
\n\n\n\nOn World Malaria Day, we will release the first malaria report written by and for the people who fight this disease in their own communities.
\n\n\n\nAs a newsletter subscriber, you get early access.
\n\n\n\nEvery month, we will host a livestreamed event.
\n\n\n\nYou get to connect with colleagues, share what we are learning together.
\n\n\n\nYou will also be the first learn what comes next.
\n\n\n\nBest regards,
\n\n\n\nReda Sadki and Charlotte Mbuh
The Geneva Learning Foundation
PS Are you following us on LinkedIn?
\n\n\n\nOn 23 April, we will release Malaria: Turning the tide.
\n\n\n\nIt is the first Teach to Reach insights report written by and for the people who fight malaria every day.
\n\n\n\nMore than 1,000 health workers from 68 countries told us what they are seeing.
\n\n\n\nWhat is working.
\n\n\n\nWhat is not.
\n\n\n\nLearn about the report, then download the full version.
\n\n\n\n\u27a1\ufe0f Read the press release
\n\n\n\n\u27a1\ufe0f Download the report in English
\n\n\n\nYou can now ask the report your own questions.
\n\n\n\nWe loaded Malaria: Turning the tide into NotebookLM.
\n\n\n\nIt has read all 170 pages.
\n\n\n\nYou type a question in plain language.
\n\n\n\nIt answers, and it shows you where in the report the answer came from.
\n\n\n\nTry asking it what health workers in your country said.
\n\n\n\nOr ask how climate change is shifting malaria where they work.
\n\n\n\n\u27a1\ufe0f Chat with the report on NotebookLM
\n\n\n\nFor our tenth anniversary, we asked TGLF Scholars two questions.
\n\n\n\nIn 48 hours, 222 of them wrote back from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe.
\n\n\n\nMarcel Muntu Ilunga, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, reached every single one of 93 children aged 0 to 23 months within 30 days.
\n\n\n\nNo budget.
\n\n\n\nNo roads.
\n\n\n\nIn Bauchi State, Nigeria, a young health worker asked a traditional leader to let girls keep learning.
\n\n\n\nHe turned to his council and said, \u201cIf she still has the will to learn, and there is support to help her, who are we to stop her?\u201d
\n\n\n\n\u27a1\ufe0f See what your colleagues said: Ten years of peer learning and action: the alumni of The Geneva Learning Foundation, in their own words
\n\n\n\nHere is what is opening this month. Do not delay: enrollment closes soon.
\n\n\n\nA crisis cuts off a mother\u2019s insulin. A grandfather loses his blood pressure medication. A child can no longer get an inhaler. This new course, built with Dr. Shanthi Mendis, retired WHO Senior Adviser for NCDs, gives you tools you can use before, during, and after a disaster to support people living with NCDs. Learn more about this certification
\n\n\n\nOlder people are the fastest growing group in many countries. This new certificate helps you lead healthy ageing work in your community. Learn more about this certification
\n\n\n\nMenopause affects every woman who lives long enough. In most health systems, it is invisible. This new primer, built with Menoglobal, makes menopause part of your practice. Learn more about this certification
\n\n\n\nHuman health, animal health, and the environment are one system. This programme builds the skills to work across all three. Learn more about this certification
\n\n\n\nOn 22 April, Earth Day, we will announce a new partnership.
\n\n\n\nOn 23 April, ahead of World Malaria Day, we will release Malaria: Turning the tide live, and the new malaria programme will open the same day.
\n\n\n\nFrom then on, we go live every month.
\n\n\n\nYou will hear from peers.
\n\n\n\nWe will share what we are learning together.
\n\n\n\nWe will announce what comes next.
\n\n\n\nSee you on 23 April.
\n","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/8pekw-0bh77","funding_references":null,"guid":"https://redasadki.me/?p=23365","id":"f0593a75-c558-4973-95c3-8567acef1c4f","image":"https://redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/20260417.MALARIA-and-peer-learning-scaled.jpg","images":[{"src":"https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/75dbb5c-7ab-424b-40af-d555cbcaec_newsletter-en.640.jpg?ssl=1"}],"indexed":true,"indexed_at":1776435503,"language":"en","parent_doi":null,"published_at":1776434833,"reference":[],"registered_at":0,"relationships":[],"rid":"7dgx5-cxk18","status":"active","summary":"Dear Reader, Please do one thing today. Confirm you will join us for World Malaria Day. CONFIRM YOUR PARTICIPATION Learn more about the event\u00a0here. To join in our Zoom studio,\u00a0use this link. Your click is powerful. It says that you care about ending malaria. It helps other health workers in your network find the event.","tags":["The Geneva Learning Foundation","Malaria","Tenth Anniversary"],"title":"Who cares about malaria? Find out in TGLF\u2019s latest newsletter","updated_at":1776434850,"url":"https://redasadki.me/2026/04/17/who-cares-about-malaria-find-out-in-tglfs-latest-newsletter/","version":"v1"},{"abstract":null,"archive_url":null,"authors":[{"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Priego","given":"Ernesto"}],"blog":{"archive_collection":22187,"archive_host":null,"archive_prefix":null,"archive_timestamps":null,"authors":[{"name":"Ernesto Priego"}],"canonical_url":null,"category":"humanities","community_id":"ae617b4e-ce60-495f-a839-e05f4c0da6b5","created_at":1698796800,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Ernesto Priego's blog. A personal repository of stuff.","doi":null,"doi_as_guid":false,"favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/ae617b4e-ce60-495f-a839-e05f4c0da6b5/logo","feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":" https://ernestopriego.com/feed/atom/","filter":null,"funding":null,"generator":"WordPress.com","generator_raw":"WordPress.com","home_page_url":"https://ernestopriego.com","id":"34b34502-27f1-4c72-8e64-5d347a8c7613","indexed":false,"issn":null,"language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","mastodon":null,"prefix":"10.59350","registered_at":1725095823,"relative_url":null,"ror":null,"secure":true,"slug":"ernestopriego","status":"active","subfield":"1213","subfield_validated":null,"title":"Everything is Connected","updated_at":1776413915.874121,"use_api":true,"use_mastodon":false,"user_id":"a057a06d-ab56-4ee3-b39f-2a85ea1a2749"},"blog_name":"Everything is Connected","blog_slug":"ernestopriego","content_html":"\n\n\n\n\n\n“Technological innovation has made it easy to separate the apparent from the existant. And this is precisely what the present system\u2019s mythology continually needs to exploit. It turns appearances into refractions, like mirages: refractions not of light but of appetite, in fact a single appetite, the appetite for more.” – John Berger, Steps Towards a Small Theory of the Visible, 2001
\n
The announcement of the \u201cEcos\u201d tour built around Soda Stereo, featuring a holographic rendering (\u201ca virtual, high tech representation\u201d) of Gustavo Cerati (1959\u20132014) performing alongside original members Charly Alberti (drums) and Zeta Bosio (bass), who are still alive and perform live alongside the hologram, has marked a striking moment in the evolving relationship between technology, memory, and cultural consumption in Latin America.
\n\n\n\nOpening on 21 March 2026 at the Movistar Arena in Buenos Aires and scheduled to run through to September 2026, concluding in Madrid, the event is presented as a concert experience while drawing on archival recordings and visual reconstruction, described by spectators as \u201ca hologram\u201d or \u201ca digital avatar\u201d, to simulate the presence of a performer who is no longer alive. The result, for me, is disquieting: an attempt to collapse the distance between absence and presence, death and performance, what is recorded and what is performed live.
\n\n\n\nNeedless to say, Jean Baudrillard\u2019s notion of the simulacrum, first published in 1981, is an obvious point of departure for engaging with this phenomenon, describing a condition in which representations no longer refer to any underlying reality and instead generate their own self contained logic. In the case of the \u201cEcos\u201d tour, the situation appears to extend beyond this. There is an effort to reinstall the original within the copy and to render the distinction irrelevant to the spectator. Who cares if Cerati is not really there, performing live? Who cares if he is actually dead?
\n\n\n\nAn obvious precedent is the ABBA Voyage project, 1which opened to the public on 27 May 2022 at the purpose built ABBA Arena in London and has since been extended repeatedly, with performances scheduled to continue until at least November 2026. The production employs advanced visual technologies to stage performances by digital avatars of the band\u2019s members. The difference between “Voyage” and “Ecos” remains significant: all four members of ABBA are still alive. The sense of unease in ABBA Voyage emerges from temporal dissonance, as audiences encounter youthful versions of artists whose ageing is widely known. The illusion engages memory and nostalgia while leaving intact the boundary between life and death. In the Soda Stereo case, that boundary is precisely what is unsettled. Cerati is presented in a form that suggests renewed performance despite his death. The simulation moves beyond evoking an image and attempts to construct a form of presence.
\n\n\n\nThis shift resonates with John Berger\u2019s observation in Steps Toward a Small Theory of the Visible, first published in 2001, that \u201ctechnological innovation has made it easy to separate the apparent from the existent.\u201d Berger described a world in which images proliferate independently of the bodies and realities they once indexed, producing a spectacle of disembodied appearances driven by consumption, even though he did not live to experience the excesses of algorithms and generative artificial intelligence that define the present moment. A quarter of a century later, there is a discernible transformation of this condition. In holographic performances such as \u201cEcos\u201d, the apparent and the existent are drawn together through a deliberate act of recombination. The illusion is staged as a form of existence and presence.
\n\n\n\nThe audience is invited to, importantly, pay to experience a concert that cannot take place in any conventional sense. The technological apparatus performs a conceptual inversion in which absence is overwritten. What appears is treated, for the duration of the event, as what is. The ontological gap identified by Berger remains, yet it becomes functionally irrelevant within the spectacle. Audience engagement here is not about belief in authenticity. What is expected is a willingness to participate in consumption, in alignment with a status quo shaped by the fear of missing out and the expectation of immediate access to everything, whenever it is desired, at the click of a button.
\n\n\n\nFor me, it has been shocking to observe the willingness of some fans and critics to embrace this show and to respond positively to it. Apparently, those who are critical of it are \u201cmissing the point\u201d. I do think it raises pressing ethical questions. At what point does homage give way to appropriation? Who authorises the posthumous performance of an artist, and under what conditions? Does legal ownership of image and recordings fully address the transformation of those materials into a simulated performing presence?
\n\n\n\nIn “Ecos”,” a shift occurs from reproduction towards animation, where a performing subject is constructed in the absence of a living individual. This points towards a paradigmatic shift: if a dead performer can be made to perform again and again, post mortem, what of the rights of living performers, and of the values traditionally granted to live music? One is also reminded of Carrie Fisher in The Rise of Skywalker (2019), where she appeared through unused footage and CGI. It However, there are still considerable, and nuanced, distictions to be made between such a use of CGI in a film (where the spectator does not always-already assume the actors on the screen are alive and where there is no live interaction between the audience and the living actors) and the use of the sound and image digital trickery as employed in “Ecos”, where the audience interacts with the performance (and therefore unavoidably must think of it) as a live event.
\n\n\n\nAnd here is the rub: it is all about commercial logic and the search for endless profit. Berger\u2019s argument that image proliferation is driven by an appetite reminds us of this. Death itself appears as a limit to be overcome through technological means. Once audiences accept holographic, videographic, or deep fake performance as equivalent to live presence, the economic possibilities expand considerably. The only norm becomes continuous exploitation.
\n\n\n\nThe implications extend beyond aesthetics into questions of existence. Berger warned that the separation of appearance from existence erodes what he called \u201cNecessity\u201d, the condition that grounds human experience in finitude, vulnerability, and embodiment. Without this grounding, experience becomes harder to share and is replaced by a spectacle that fosters isolation. Holographic and deep fake concerts intensify this condition by presenting presence without the constraints of living bodies. The experience offered is stripped of contingency, risk, and mutual encounter.
\n\n\n\nWhat is diminished in such performances is a sense of relation, of communion. A live concert involves more than the execution of sound and image. It is shaped by the co presence of performers and audience, by unpredictability, and by the shared awareness of time passing irreversibly. The awareness of the performer\u2019s living physical presence, in relation to our own, has long defined much of the essence of live music. When we sing along, it is our own voices that create communication and communion. There was always an awareness that a given moment, despite repetition throughout a tour, was absolutely unique. A pre recorded and technologically mediated simulation, appreciated in much the same way as a fully live concert, replaces this with replication. It becomes a spectacle in which participants risk deceiving others and themselves. Singing along to a projection of a dead performer as if they were alive and truly in front of us / in our presence is not only unsettling; it can feel empty and even embarrassing.
\n\n\n\nIf the \u201cEcos\u201d tour proves sustainable and achieves commercial success, it is likely to establish a precedent. Rights holders may increasingly turn to holographic or deep fake performances as reliable and repeatable sources of revenue. Ethical hesitation may diminish as such practices become normalised. What begins as an exceptional spectacle may become routine. This is all, perhaps, obvious.
\n\n\n\nThe central question concerns the implications of resurrecting the dead for entertainment, and in particular for entertainment described as \u201clive\u201d. The issue extends beyond the legacy of individual artists and touches on broader cultural understandings of presence, memory, and mortality. The holographic Cerati does not restore the artist. Even if Soda Stereo was never only Cerati, and the remaining members perform alongside the digital reconstruction, “Ecos” produces a version that can be consumed without the resistance of reality. The apparent stands in for the existent through a process that persuades audiences to overlook the gap between them.
\n\n\n\nThese views may well be dismissed as those of an older voice resisting change, yet I hope they remain worth articulating. The extent to which this substitution is accepted may shape, at the very least, the future of live performance and influence how distinctions between lived experience and technologically mediated display continue to be understood.2
\n\n\n\nREFERENCES
\n\n\n\nBaudrillard, J. 1994 [1981]. Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
\n\n\n\nBerger, J. 2025 [2001]. “Steps Towards a Small Theory of the Visible”, in Hold Everything Dear: Dispatches on Survival and Resistance, London: Verso.
\n\n\n\nRomero Nu\u00f1ez, F. (2026). “Critics say the \u2018Ecos\u2019 tour is not Soda Stereo. They\u2019re missing the point”. Buenos Aires Herald. 15 April 2026. Available at https://buenosairesherald.com/op-ed/critics-say-ecos-tour-is-not-soda-stereo-theyre-missing-the-point. [Accessed 17 April 2026].
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/jq6z6-dar26","funding_references":null,"guid":"https://ernestopriego.com/?p=11581","id":"a7b83ddc-803c-4063-b77a-1ad3240a6f27","image":"https://epriego.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/leia-blogroll-1577761943850_160w.webp?w=1024","images":[{"height":"576","sizes":"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px","src":"https://epriego.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/leia-blogroll-1577761943850_160w.webp?w=1024","srcset":"https://epriego.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/leia-blogroll-1577761943850_160w.webp?w=1024, https://epriego.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/leia-blogroll-1577761943850_160w.webp?w=150, https://epriego.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/leia-blogroll-1577761943850_160w.webp?w=300, https://epriego.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/leia-blogroll-1577761943850_160w.webp?w=768, https://epriego.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/leia-blogroll-1577761943850_160w.webp","width":"1024"}],"indexed":true,"indexed_at":1776445187,"language":"en","parent_doi":null,"published_at":1776434248,"reference":[{"id":"https://buenosairesherald.com/op-ed/critics-say-ecos-tour-is-not-soda-stereo-theyre-missing-the-point"}],"registered_at":0,"relationships":[],"rid":"q9xm9-s5295","status":"active","summary":"\n T\n\nhe announcement of the \u201cEcos\u201d tour built around Soda Stereo, featuring a holographic rendering (\u201ca virtual, high tech representation\u201d) of Gustavo Cerati (1959\u20132014) performing alongside original members Charly Alberti (drums) and Zeta Bosio (bass), who are still alive and perform live alongside the hologram, has marked a striking moment in the evolving relationship between technology, memory, and cultural consumption in Latin","tags":["Scraps"],"title":"When the Dead Perform: Simulacra, Spectacle, and the Ethics of Faking the Live Performance","updated_at":1776443861,"url":"https://ernestopriego.com/2026/04/17/when-the-dead-perform-simulacra-spectacle-and-the-ethics-of-faking-the-live-performance/","version":"v1"},{"abstract":"Cher Lecteur, Ch\u00e8re Lectrice, Nous vous demandons une seule chose aujourd\u2019hui. Confirmez votre pr\u00e9sence pour la Journ\u00e9e mondiale contre le paludisme. Pour en savoir plus sur l\u2019\u00e9v\u00e9nement,\u00a0cliquez ici. Pour nous rejoindre dans notre studio Zoom,\u00a0utilisez ce lien. Votre clic compte. Il dit que vous tenez \u00e0 mettre fin au paludisme.","archive_url":null,"authors":[{"affiliation":[{"id":"https://ror.org/04h13ss13","name":"The Geneva Learning Foundation"}],"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Sadki","given":"Reda","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4051-0606"}],"blog":{"archive_collection":null,"archive_host":null,"archive_prefix":null,"archive_timestamps":null,"authors":null,"canonical_url":null,"category":"educationalSciences","community_id":"7e26491f-41c6-4665-9088-5aa6643a1ba8","created_at":1731211871,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Learning to make a difference","doi":null,"doi_as_guid":false,"favicon":null,"feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://redasadki.me/feed/atom/","filter":null,"funding":null,"generator":"WordPress","generator_raw":"WordPress 6.7.1","home_page_url":"https://redasadki.me","id":"88b8caba-b485-4654-96ce-a21547abaab3","indexed":true,"issn":null,"language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","mastodon":"https://techhub.social/@redasadki","prefix":"10.59350","registered_at":0,"relative_url":null,"ror":null,"secure":true,"slug":"redasadki","status":"active","subfield":"3304","subfield_validated":null,"title":"Reda Sadki","updated_at":1776414966.842998,"use_api":true,"use_mastodon":false,"user_id":"0d34dfde-a007-4ec9-9bc6-7b0318fa2c5e"},"blog_name":"Reda Sadki","blog_slug":"redasadki","content_html":"\nCher Lecteur, Ch\u00e8re Lectrice,
\n\n\n\nNous vous demandons une seule chose aujourd\u2019hui.
\n\n\n\nConfirmez votre pr\u00e9sence pour la Journ\u00e9e mondiale contre le paludisme.
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPour en savoir plus sur l\u2019\u00e9v\u00e9nement, cliquez ici.
\n\n\n\nPour nous rejoindre dans notre studio Zoom, utilisez ce lien.
\n\n\n\nVotre clic compte.
\n\n\n\nIl dit que vous tenez \u00e0 mettre fin au paludisme.
\n\n\n\nIl aide d\u2019autres professionnels de la sant\u00e9 de votre r\u00e9seau \u00e0 trouver l\u2019\u00e9v\u00e9nement.
\n\n\n\nLe jour de la Journ\u00e9e mondiale contre le paludisme, nous publierons le premier rapport sur le paludisme \u00e9crit par et pour celles et ceux qui combattent cette maladie dans leurs propres communaut\u00e9s.
\n\n\n\nEn tant qu\u2019abonn\u00e9 \u00e0 cette lettre d\u2019information, vous y avez acc\u00e8s en avant-premi\u00e8re.
\n\n\n\nChaque mois, nous organiserons un \u00e9v\u00e9nement en direct.
\n\n\n\nVous pourrez \u00e9changer avec des coll\u00e8gues et partager ce que nous apprenons ensemble.
\n\n\n\nVous serez aussi les premiers \u00e0 d\u00e9couvrir ce qui vient ensuite.
\n\n\n\nCordialement,
\n\n\n\nReda Sadki et Charlotte Mbuh
La Fondation Apprendre Gen\u00e8ve
PS Nous suivez-vous sur LinkedIn ?
\n\n\n\n
Le 23 avril, nous publierons Paludisme : inverser la tendance.
C\u2019est le premier rapport d\u2019analyse Teach to Reach \u00e9crit par et pour celles et ceux qui combattent le paludisme au quotidien.
\n\n\n\nPlus de 1 000 professionnels de la sant\u00e9 de 68 pays nous ont dit ce qu\u2019ils observent.
\n\n\n\nCe qui fonctionne.
\n\n\n\nCe qui ne fonctionne pas.
\n\n\n\nD\u00e9couvrez le rapport, puis t\u00e9l\u00e9chargez la version compl\u00e8te.
\n\n\n\n\u27a1\ufe0f Lire le communiqu\u00e9 de presse
\n\n\n\n\u27a1\ufe0f T\u00e9l\u00e9charger le rapport en fran\u00e7ais
\n\n\n\nVous pouvez maintenant poser vos propres questions au rapport.
\n\n\n\nNous avons charg\u00e9 Paludisme : inverser la tendance dans NotebookLM.
\n\n\n\nL\u2019outil a lu les 170 pages du rapport.
\n\n\n\nVous tapez une question dans un langage simple.
\n\n\n\nIl r\u00e9pond et vous indique \u00e0 quel endroit du rapport se trouve la r\u00e9ponse.
\n\n\n\nEssayez de lui demander ce que les professionnels de la sant\u00e9 de votre pays ont dit.
\n\n\n\nOu demandez-lui comment le changement climatique modifie le paludisme l\u00e0 o\u00f9 ils travaillent.
\n\n\n\n\u27a1\ufe0f Dialoguer avec le rapport sur NotebookLM
\n\n\n\nPour notre dixi\u00e8me anniversaire, nous avons pos\u00e9 deux questions aux Scholars de la Fondation.
\n\n\n\nEn 48 heures, 222 d\u2019entre eux nous ont r\u00e9pondu depuis l\u2019Afrique, l\u2019Asie, l\u2019Am\u00e9rique latine et l\u2019Europe.
\n\n\n\nMarcel Muntu Ilunga, en R\u00e9publique d\u00e9mocratique du Congo, a vaccin\u00e9 chacun des 93 enfants \u00e2g\u00e9s de 0 \u00e0 23 mois de sa zone, en 30 jours.
\n\n\n\nSans budget.
\n\n\n\nSans routes praticables.
\n\n\n\nDans l\u2019\u00c9tat de Bauchi, au Nig\u00e9ria, une jeune professionnelle de la sant\u00e9 a demand\u00e9 \u00e0 un chef traditionnel de laisser les filles continuer d\u2019\u00e9tudier.
\n\n\n\nIl s\u2019est tourn\u00e9 vers son conseil et a dit : \u00ab Si elle a encore la volont\u00e9 d\u2019apprendre, et qu\u2019il y a du soutien pour l\u2019aider, qui sommes-nous pour l\u2019arr\u00eater ? \u00bb
\n\n\n\n\u27a1\ufe0f D\u00e9couvrez ce que vos coll\u00e8gues ont dit : Dix ans d\u2019apprentissage entre pairs et d\u2019action : les anciens Scholars de La Fondation Apprendre Gen\u00e8ve, avec leurs propres mots
\n\n\n\nVoici ce qui ouvre ce mois-ci. Ne tardez pas : les inscriptions ferment bient\u00f4t.
\n\n\n\nUne crise coupe l\u2019insuline d\u2019une m\u00e8re. Un grand-p\u00e8re perd son traitement contre l\u2019hypertension. Un enfant n\u2019a plus acc\u00e8s \u00e0 son inhalateur. Cette nouvelle formation, con\u00e7ue avec la Dre Shanthi Mendis, ancienne conseill\u00e8re principale de l\u2019OMS pour les maladies non transmissibles, vous donne des outils utiles avant, pendant et apr\u00e8s une catastrophe pour accompagner les personnes atteintes de maladies non transmissibles. En savoir plus sur cette certification
\n\n\n\nLes personnes \u00e2g\u00e9es sont le groupe qui cro\u00eet le plus vite dans de nombreux pays. Ce nouveau certificat vous aide \u00e0 conduire le changement pour un vieillissement en bonne sant\u00e9 dans votre communaut\u00e9. En savoir plus sur cette certification
\n\n\n\nLa sant\u00e9 humaine, la sant\u00e9 animale et l\u2019environnement ne forment qu\u2019un seul syst\u00e8me. Cette formation d\u00e9veloppe les comp\u00e9tences pour agir sur ces trois dimensions. En savoir plus sur cette certification
\n\n\n\nLe 22 avril, jour de la Terre, nous annoncerons un nouveau partenariat.
\n\n\n\nLe 23 avril, \u00e0 la veille de la Journ\u00e9e mondiale contre le paludisme, nous publierons Paludisme : inverser la tendance en direct, et la nouvelle formation sur le paludisme ouvrira le m\u00eame jour.
\n\n\n\n\u00c0 partir de l\u00e0, nous serons en direct chaque mois.
\n\n\n\nVous entendrez vos pairs.
\n\n\n\nNous partagerons ce que nous apprenons ensemble.
\n\n\n\nNous annoncerons ce qui vient ensuite.
\n\n\n\nRendez-vous le 23 avril.
\n","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/xacbs-3n339","funding_references":null,"guid":"https://redasadki.me/?p=23359","id":"9f01a6cf-5d54-4655-9ef1-326a7d33e3de","image":"https://redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/20260417.Paludisme-et-apprentissage-par-les-pairs-scaled.jpg","images":[{"src":"https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/ed3db87-c34a-b7e3-60-81c6566183d_newsletter-fr.640.jpg?ssl=1"}],"indexed":true,"indexed_at":1776435505,"language":"fr","parent_doi":null,"published_at":1776434106,"reference":[],"registered_at":0,"relationships":[],"rid":"paxmz-5nz52","status":"active","summary":"Cher Lecteur, Ch\u00e8re Lectrice, Nous vous demandons une seule chose aujourd\u2019hui. Confirmez votre pr\u00e9sence pour la Journ\u00e9e mondiale contre le paludisme. Confirmer votre participation Pour en savoir plus sur l\u2019\u00e9v\u00e9nement,\u00a0cliquez ici. Pour nous rejoindre dans notre studio Zoom,\u00a0utilisez ce lien. Votre clic compte. Il dit que vous tenez \u00e0 mettre fin au paludisme.","tags":["The Geneva Learning Foundation","Fran\u00e7ais","Malaria","Paludisme"],"title":"Face au paludisme: Lettre d\u2019information n\u00b0\u00a02 de la Fondation Apprendre Gen\u00e8ve","updated_at":1776434119,"url":"https://redasadki.me/2026/04/17/face-au-paludisme-lettre-dinformation-n-2-de-la-fondation-apprendre-geneve/","version":"v1"},{"abstract":"Geneva, 17 April 2026 \u2013 The Geneva Learning Foundation releases the first peer-generated evidence base from more than a thousand frontline health workers on what is working, what is failing, and what needs to change in the fight against malaria.","archive_url":null,"authors":[{"affiliation":[{"id":"https://ror.org/04h13ss13","name":"The Geneva Learning Foundation"}],"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Sadki","given":"Reda","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4051-0606"}],"blog":{"archive_collection":null,"archive_host":null,"archive_prefix":null,"archive_timestamps":null,"authors":null,"canonical_url":null,"category":"educationalSciences","community_id":"7e26491f-41c6-4665-9088-5aa6643a1ba8","created_at":1731211871,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Learning to make a difference","doi":null,"doi_as_guid":false,"favicon":null,"feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://redasadki.me/feed/atom/","filter":null,"funding":null,"generator":"WordPress","generator_raw":"WordPress 6.7.1","home_page_url":"https://redasadki.me","id":"88b8caba-b485-4654-96ce-a21547abaab3","indexed":true,"issn":null,"language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","mastodon":"https://techhub.social/@redasadki","prefix":"10.59350","registered_at":0,"relative_url":null,"ror":null,"secure":true,"slug":"redasadki","status":"active","subfield":"3304","subfield_validated":null,"title":"Reda Sadki","updated_at":1776414966.842998,"use_api":true,"use_mastodon":false,"user_id":"0d34dfde-a007-4ec9-9bc6-7b0318fa2c5e"},"blog_name":"Reda Sadki","blog_slug":"redasadki","content_html":"\nGeneva, 17 April 2026 \u2013 The Geneva Learning Foundation releases the first peer-generated evidence base from more than a thousand frontline health workers on what is working, what is failing, and what needs to change in the fight against malaria.
\n\n\n\nThe Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) today releases Malaria: Turning the tide, the first peer-generated evidence base from the 11th Teach to Reach event, organized in partnership with the RBM Partnership to End Malaria.
\n\n\n\nThe report is published in English and French on the occasion of World Malaria Day 2026.
\n\n\n\nThe report documents what health workers from across the Global South know about malaria in the places where they live and work.
\n\n\n\nIt is also the first output from a new TGLF malaria initiative that launches this spring.
\n\n\n\nHave a conversation with the report. You type a question in plain language, for example “What did health workers say about bed nets?” or “What are local solutions to drug shortages?”, and the tool answers using only the content of this report. You do not need any technical skill or any prior experience with artificial intelligence to talk to the report.
\n\n\n\nOfficial guidelines tell health workers what to do about malaria.
\n\n\n\nThey cannot capture the daily reality of implementing control measures in a village during the rainy season, in a clinic where the rapid diagnostic tests have run out, or in a community where families use bed nets for fishing because the river feeds their children.
\n\n\n\nMalaria: Turning the tide is built from the voluntary contributions of frontline health workers who responded to a set of questions before the 11th Teach to Reach event. Their answers, in English and French, were analysed into eight thematic chapters covering personal experience, local disease trends, treatment, bed nets, vector control, vaccination, community action, and what governments should do next.
\n\n\n\nIt is a record of what health workers told each other, very different from a summary of what experts think health workers need.
\n\n\n\nMany contributors have had malaria themselves, often more than once, and have watched it move through their own households.
\n\n\n\nChinonye Sussan Nkemakolam, Public Health Nutritionist, Ministry of Health, Imo State, Nigeria:
\n\n\n\n\u201cI personally had an episode where I had this malaria and took virtually all prescribed drugs given by my doctor and injections and infusions to no avail.I felt I was going to die from this dreaded disease, but somehow I and my children survived it.\u201d
\n\n\n\nMuntumaladi Kasabutu Edna, Physician, Ministry of Health, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo:
\n\n\n\n\u201cMy community in general, and my family in particular, do not go more than two weeks without someone being struck down by malaria.\u201d
\n\n\n\nBisimwa Muzusa Emmanuel, Physician, Ministry of Health, Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo:
\n\n\n\n\u201cMy own family has been affected by malaria, and this year alone, three of my children (aged 1, 3 and 5) have suffered from it, despite sleeping under mosquito nets, and the youngest has even been hospitalized. This has been a period of psychological and financial upheaval.\u201d
\n\n\n\nClimate change is not an abstraction in these accounts. It is changing when and where mosquitoes bite, and health workers are adapting faster than the textbooks.
\n\n\n\nJoseph Gyebi-Buaben, Public health worker, Ministry of Health, Dormaa East, Ghana:
\n\n\n\n\u201cWe have always learnt that Anopheles bite at night and rest during the day but this has changed. I think our usual approach and thinking about mosquitoes needs to shift to this new dynamic which will help us eliminate and eradicate malaria.\u201d
\n\n\n\nWhen local efforts work, they work because communities co-own them. Maxwell Owusu, Research Coordinator, Ministry of Health, Kumasi, Ghana:
\n\n\n\n\u201cI noticed changes when our community hospital reported a significant 35% drop in malaria cases compared to the previous year. Residents attributed it to successful health campaigns organized by the regional and district health workers, a noticeable decrease in community stagnant water sources due to improved drainage maintenance, and increasing access to bed nets.\u201d
\n\n\n\nDr Amisi Nyengo Gilbert, Public health expert, Ministry of Health, Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo:
\n\n\n\n\u201cWhat worked was the active involvement of local chiefs and community leaders in raising awareness. Trust they inspire has helped to reinforce the adoption of preventive behaviour.\u201d
\n\n\n\nAnd for many participants, the event itself changed how they understand the disease they thought they already knew. Sarah Kamangu Meta, Community health worker, Mont-Amba district, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo:
\n\n\n\n\u201cBefore, I did not master the subject in detail, and I did not see malaria as a disease to avoid since most people are already used to it. Following this training I changed my way of seeing it.\u201d
\n\n\n\nAdeleye Akeem Oladele, Oyo State Primary Health Care Board, Nigeria:
\n\n\n\n\u201cParticipating in Teach to Reach broadened my perspective, helping me see my world differently. I realized malaria\u2019s intricate links with climate, education, economics and social justice.\u201d
\n\n\n\nRead together, the contributions describe a malaria response that is more stuck than any dashboard suggests.
\n\n\n\nWhat the contributors keep returning to is that none of these tools work alone, and none of them work without the trust of the community.
\n\n\n\nGlobal malaria mortality has plateaued.
\n\n\n\nThe World Health Organization has called for reinvigorated global efforts to curb the rising threat.
\n\n\n\nFunding is tightening.
\n\n\n\nDrug and insecticide resistance are spreading.
\n\n\n\nIn 2024, an estimated 610,000 people died from malaria, mostly young children in sub-Saharan Africa.
\n\n\n\nIn this context, the stagnation is not primarily a biology problem or a technology problem.
\n\n\n\nIt is a problem of whose knowledge counts in the design of the response.
\n\n\n\nA recent analysis by Reda Sadki and Charlotte Mbuh argued that the malaria plateau is at its core a workforce crisis, and that the health workers closest to communities are the most underused source of operational intelligence the response has.
\n\n\n\nAn earlier article on subnational tailoring showed how the gap between national plans and local implementation is precisely where experiential knowledge becomes decisive.
\n\n\n\nAnd a new evaluation of peer learning for malaria national programme staff found that a single two-hour peer event with more than 1,700 health workers from 46 countries outperformed a four-month programme on professional influence, practice impact, and worldview change.
\n\n\n\nMalaria: Turning the tide puts that argument on a concrete footing. It is the raw material of a different way of working.
\n\n\n\nThe report is not a set of prescriptions.
\n\n\n\nIt does not ask anyone to copy what someone else did in another country.
\n\n\n\nIt asks health workers to read what their peers are doing, notice what resonates with their own setting, and adapt.
\n\n\n\nA community health worker in Cameroon put the logic plainly in her reflection after the event. Boubakari Hamadou, NGO, Maroua, Cameroon:
\n\n\n\n\u201cMy participation allowed me to understand the realities elsewhere and to know that the challenges I encounter are also possible elsewhere.\u201d
\n\n\n\nThat sentence is the organising principle of the whole report.
\n\n\n\nThe problems are shared.
\n\n\n\nThe solutions are local.
\n\n\n\nThe learning has to move sideways, peer to peer, to travel at all.
\n\n\n\nMalaria: Turning the tide is the first output from a new TGLF collaboration with the Gates Foundation to strengthen malaria care in West and Central Africa by supporting the health providers who actually deliver it. The initiative will organise thousands of public and private sector health workers into peer problem-solving networks focused on data quality and use, private sector integration, and the introduction of new vector control tools including gene drive. Further insights reports will follow over the next twenty-four months. The 12th Teach to Reach event will be held later in 2026 and will continue to listen to what the frontline has to say.
\n\n\n\nBoth versions are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
\n\n\n\nThe Geneva Learning Foundation is a Swiss non-profit that connects more than 80,000 health practitioners in over 137 countries through peer learning networks designed to turn frontline experience into action. Its Teach to Reach events connect thousands of health workers from the Global South together online to share what is working in their communities and to learn from each other.
\n\n\n\nClaude Cardot claude.cardot@learning.foundation +41 77 231 96 91
\n","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/t604g-66n28","funding_references":null,"guid":"https://redasadki.me/?p=23340","id":"1cab20bf-b7af-4950-af7b-5935a182f1bb","image":"https://redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Malaria-turning-the-tide.jpg","images":[{"height":"300","sizes":"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px","src":"https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/T2R-EN-Malaria-Turning-the-tide.zenodo.15126588-COVER.jpg?resize=225%2C300&ssl=1","srcset":"https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/T2R-EN-Malaria-Turning-the-tide.zenodo.15126588-COVER.jpg?resize=225%2C300&ssl=1, https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/T2R-EN-Malaria-Turning-the-tide.zenodo.15126588-COVER.jpg?w=360&ssl=1","width":"225"},{"height":"832","sizes":"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px","src":"https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/20260417.Chat-with-the-report-Malaria-Turning-the-Tide-Community-Action-and-Collective-Impact-NotebookLM-1.png?resize=1392%2C832&ssl=1","srcset":"https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/20260417.Chat-with-the-report-Malaria-Turning-the-Tide-Community-Action-and-Collective-Impact-NotebookLM-1.png?w=1392&ssl=1, https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/20260417.Chat-with-the-report-Malaria-Turning-the-Tide-Community-Action-and-Collective-Impact-NotebookLM-1.png?resize=300%2C179&ssl=1, https://i0.wp.com/redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/20260417.Chat-with-the-report-Malaria-Turning-the-Tide-Community-Action-and-Collective-Impact-NotebookLM-1.png?resize=768%2C459&ssl=1","width":"1392"}],"indexed":true,"indexed_at":1776438747,"language":"en","parent_doi":null,"published_at":1776429467,"reference":[],"registered_at":0,"relationships":[],"rid":"27rbq-y7q05","status":"active","summary":"\n Geneva, 17 April 2026\n\n\u2013 The Geneva Learning Foundation releases the first peer-generated evidence base from more than a thousand frontline health workers on what is working, what is failing, and what needs to change in the fight against malaria.","tags":["Global Health","The Geneva Learning Foundation","Continuous Learning","Health Worker Voices","Learning Culture"],"title":"Turning the tide: a new insights report demonstrates why health worker knowledge is critical to ending malaria","updated_at":1776438584,"url":"https://redasadki.me/2026/04/17/turning-the-tide-a-new-insights-report-demonstrates-why-health-worker-knowledge-is-critical-to-ending-malaria/","version":"v1"},{"abstract":"\u201cIf she still has the will to learn, and there is support to help her, who are we to stop her?\u201d Those words came from a traditional leader in Bauchi State, Nigeria. A man who had previously opposed girls returning to school after becoming mothers.","archive_url":null,"authors":[{"affiliation":[{"id":"https://ror.org/04h13ss13","name":"The Geneva Learning Foundation"}],"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Sadki","given":"Reda","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4051-0606"}],"blog":{"archive_collection":null,"archive_host":null,"archive_prefix":null,"archive_timestamps":null,"authors":null,"canonical_url":null,"category":"educationalSciences","community_id":"7e26491f-41c6-4665-9088-5aa6643a1ba8","created_at":1731211871,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Learning to make a difference","doi":null,"doi_as_guid":false,"favicon":null,"feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://redasadki.me/feed/atom/","filter":null,"funding":null,"generator":"WordPress","generator_raw":"WordPress 6.7.1","home_page_url":"https://redasadki.me","id":"88b8caba-b485-4654-96ce-a21547abaab3","indexed":true,"issn":null,"language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","mastodon":"https://techhub.social/@redasadki","prefix":"10.59350","registered_at":0,"relative_url":null,"ror":null,"secure":true,"slug":"redasadki","status":"active","subfield":"3304","subfield_validated":null,"title":"Reda Sadki","updated_at":1776414966.842998,"use_api":true,"use_mastodon":false,"user_id":"0d34dfde-a007-4ec9-9bc6-7b0318fa2c5e"},"blog_name":"Reda Sadki","blog_slug":"redasadki","content_html":"\n\u201cIf she still has the will to learn, and there is support to help her, who are we to stop her?\u201d
\n\n\n\nThose words came from a traditional leader in Bauchi State, Nigeria.
\n\n\n\nA man who had previously opposed girls returning to school after becoming mothers.
\n\n\n\nHe said them out loud, in a room full of community members, during a dialogue session led by TGLF Scholar Rashida Musa Mukaddas.
\n\n\n\nMinutes earlier, Rashida had shared the story of an adolescent mother from a non-formal learning center.
\n\n\n\nA girl who had been forced out of school but still dreamed of becoming a teacher.
\n\n\n\nRashida had just completed a TGLF peer learning session on influencing norms.
\n\n\n\nShe had listened and reflected on how fellow practitioners had successfully responded to such situations.
\n\n\n\nSo she walked into that room with a different approach than she had used before.
\n\n\n\n\u201cAs I spoke, the room shifted,\u201d she wrote.
\n\n\n\nA belief that had governed that community for generations bent in a single meeting.
\n\n\n\nThis is one story among 222 shared in two days by our Alumni.
\n\n\n\nTo mark our tenth anniversary, we asked TGLF Scholars two questions.
\n\n\n\nThe first: share your TGLF story.
\n\n\n\nTell us how participation has changed you and the people you serve.
\n\n\n\nGet specific.
\n\n\n\nThink of a moment that stands out.
\n\n\n\nWhat happened?
\n\n\n\nWhat were the concrete results?
\n\n\n\nThe second: what do you want from The Geneva Learning Foundation in the future?
\n\n\n\nThe responses were extraordinary, in volume and in substance.
\n\n\n\nScholars from across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe wrote back.
\n\n\n\nTheir stories span vaccination, neglected tropical diseases, mental health and psychosocial support, gender-based violence, humanitarian response, and health systems leadership.
\n\n\n\nWhat stands out is not the range of topics.
\n\n\n\nIt is the pattern of outcomes that Scholars themselves describe as exceeding what they thought possible.
\n\n\n\nMarcel Muntu Ilunga, a public health expert working in a displaced community in DR Congo with no roads and no dedicated budget, wrote: \u201cAll 93 children aged 0 to 23 months were vaccinated within 30 days of the action plan.\u201d
\n\n\n\nHe did it using a positive deviance approach, learned from peers who explained how they had actually done it, \u201cenlisting model parents to raise awareness throughout the settlement.\u201d
\n\n\n\nOlenga Okitengeno Rita, a community health worker in Kinshasa, described the same kind of resourcefulness at scale.
\n\n\n\n\u201cThe challenge was immense: we had no dedicated budget and no significant logistical resources.\u201d
\n\n\n\nShe mobilized community chiefs and field workers on her own initiative.
\n\n\n\n\u201cWe managed to identify 121 children who had slipped through the vaccination system.
\n\n\n\nWithout any external financial resources, but with unwavering determination, we reached 80% of those children.\u201d
\n\n\n\nThen she did it again in another health zone: \u201c79 children identified and over 80% vaccinated. This success proves that technical skills and human commitment can compensate for a lack of resources.\u201d
\n\n\n\nDr. Julien Kingombe Kambale joined the Foundation in 2019 during the Ebola response in North Kivu.
\n\n\n\n\u201cThe Foundation changed the way I think by encouraging me to share both my successes and my challenges,\u201d he wrote.
\n\n\n\nThe result: \u201cI was able to reach 25,000 zero-dose children and reduce missed opportunities.\u201d
\n\n\n\nBrigitte Meugang, a nurse in Cameroon, described what happened after she joined a TGLF programme on neglected tropical diseases.
\n\n\n\nShe trained 80 staff at her hospital and 40 health facilities in her area.
\n\n\n\nThen she followed the patients herself.
\n\n\n\n\u201cOf eleven patients I personally followed, nine achieved full recovery and two were able to conceive and give birth. This remains something extraordinary for me.\u201d
\n\n\n\nAcross nearly every response, the same sequence appears: a Scholar encounters a problem that existing approaches cannot solve, engages with peers through TGLF, and then does something different on the ground.
\n\n\n\nDr. Bidilu Charles, a pharmacist in Kinshasa, described building a peer learning practice from nothing.
\n\n\n\n\u201cWe created a working group with colleagues where we communicate by WhatsApp every morning and every evening for about ten minutes. We started by discussing the quality of medical prescriptions circulating in our area.\u201d By collecting incorrect prescriptions and studying them together, \u201cthis exercise forced each of us to discover our own gaps.\u201d
\n\n\n\nToday, they run awareness campaigns for prescribers across peripheral areas.
\n\n\n\nAcheampong Kudom, a public health specialist in Ghana, faced a religious group refusing HPV vaccination.
\n\n\n\nHis team wanted to either ignore the group or invoke the law.
\n\n\n\nInstead, he drew on something a colleague had shared during a Teach to Reach session.
\n\n\n\n\u201cSo instead of going after them on the powers of our public health act, I resorted to listening to their reasons, showed genuine concern for their beliefs, and got insights on how to tailor our HPV communications to their understanding. That day, they did not agree to the vaccination, but subsequently, a significant number of them agreed to get their children vaccinated.\u201d
\n\n\n\nRoody Jacques, a logistician in Haiti, described a transformation in himself.
\n\n\n\n\u201cWith the insecurity taking hold in Haiti, I used to tell myself that if vaccines were not reaching health facilities, it was not my fault.\u201d
\n\n\n\nThen he joined the Foundation.
\n\n\n\n\u201cI quickly understood that this attitude was not acceptable. Since then, I have thrown myself body and soul into ensuring supply, regardless of the security situation, which is currently at its lowest point.\u201d
\n\n\n\nAndr\u00e9 Claude Mukinayi Kalamba, a nurse in Kalemie, DR Congo, put it in a single image: \u201cI climbed into a makeshift canoe for the very first time to vaccinate a population on the other side of a riverbank. The Foundation helped me find the courage to go and help others. The result was that this population, which had been hostile to vaccination, was vaccinated without any problems.\u201d
\n\n\n\nSeveral Scholars described something harder to quantify than vaccination numbers, but perhaps more consequential: a fundamental shift in how they see their own role.
\n\n\n\nTitus Kipchirchir Kolongei, a consultant working across multiple countries, wrote: \u201cThe single most transformative thing TGLF gave me is a conviction I carry into every field assignment: no challenge is too large to be solved. Someone, somewhere, has already faced it. The question is whether I am humble enough to look, listen, and learn from them.\u201d
\n\n\n\nHe named the shift precisely: \u201cBefore TGLF, I was a strong technician. After TGLF, I became a learning leader.\u201d
\n\n\n\nKouatchouang Adrienne Vanessa, a public health specialist in Cameroon, described how months of polio vaccination campaigns hit a wall.
\n\n\n\n\u201cThe population was becoming increasingly resistant to vaccination.
\n\n\n\nDespite all our efforts, we felt our messages were no longer getting through as they once had.\u201d
\n\n\n\nThrough TGLF, she learned something she had not expected. \u201cI learned something fundamental: how to put words to my experience, share what I truly live through on the ground, and above all, listen to others. I am no longer only in action. I am also in reflection, sharing, and collective learning.\u201d
\n\n\n\nMarguerite Bosita Saye, a doctor in Lukunga, DR Congo, applied the \u201cfive whys\u201d technique she learned through peer learning. \u201cWhy are children not vaccinated? Because they do not come to the health center. Why? Because parents are not informed or have reservations.\u201d
\n\n\n\nShe traced the chain all the way down to the root: \u201cBecause there was no clear community mobilization strategy adapted to the local context.\u201d
\n\n\n\nKateryna Vyshnevska, a welfare specialist in Ukraine, described how the Foundation\u2019s PFA Accelerator shaped her response to a sensitive case involving a minor during the war.
\n\n\n\n\u201cThis was not abstract learning. It directly shaped the outcome for that child.\u201d
\n\n\n\nThen something unexpected happened.
\n\n\n\n\u201cI began applying simple, practical approaches, like creating \u2019safe corners\u2019 for children, an idea that emerged and grew through peer learning. It spread quickly among practitioners I support and became a small but powerful intervention that others could adapt immediately.\u201d
\n\n\n\nAnd sometimes the impact is carried in a single sentence a Scholar will never forget.
\n\n\n\nArinzechi Ogonna Ijeoma, a pharmacist in Nigeria, wrote: \u201cOne experience I will never forget was when a young person told me, \u2019This is the first time someone has explained this to me without making me feel ashamed.\u2019\u201d
\n\n\n\nThe second question asked Scholars to look ahead.
\n\n\n\nWhat emerged was a declaration of continued commitment paired with specific asks.
\n\n\n\nScholars want more.
\n\n\n\nMore programmes, more depth, more languages, more opportunities to connect with peers across borders.
\n\n\n\nSeveral asked for TGLF to expand into new thematic areas where they see the same peer learning model working.
\n\n\n\nOthers asked for more sustained support after courses end, so that the momentum does not stop when a programme closes.
\n\n\n\nThey want to contribute.
\n\n\n\nMultiple Scholars explicitly offered to take on mentoring and facilitation roles.
\n\n\n\nThey see themselves not as participants waiting for the next course, but as leaders of a movement that keeps growing through their own effort.
\n\n\n\nOlenga Okitengeno Rita described her trajectory in exactly those terms: \u201cThe greatest transformation was my transition to the role of TGLF Congolese movement leader.\u201d
\n\n\n\nThey want recognition of what local expertise can do.
\n\n\n\nAcross the responses, there is a quiet but consistent message.
\n\n\n\nThe solutions already exist in the communities where Scholars work.
\n\n\n\nWhat TGLF provides is not the answer.
\n\n\n\nIt is the structure, the peer connection, and the confidence to act on what they already know.
\n\n\n\nThese are not testimonials written for a report.
\n\n\n\nThey are first-person accounts from health and humanitarian workers describing what they did, where they did it, and what changed as a result.
\n\n\n\nA nurse who crossed a river in a canoe.
\n\n\n\nA pharmacist who built a daily learning practice from ten-minute WhatsApp sessions.
\n\n\n\nA community health worker who reached 80% of missed children with zero funding.
\n\n\n\nA leader who reversed a generation of belief in a single meeting.
\n\n\n\nOver the coming weeks, we will be sharing these voices one at a time across our social media channels.
\n\n\n\nOne story per day, in English and in French.
\n\n\n\nTheir words are the clearest measure of what a decade of peer learning makes possible.
\n","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/hz5a3-4q857","funding_references":null,"guid":"https://redasadki.me/?p=23336","id":"62b902a2-889e-4898-9622-6ad50699e887","image":"https://redasadki.me/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Ten-years-of-peer-learning-and-action.jpg","images":[],"indexed":true,"indexed_at":1776422380,"language":"en","parent_doi":null,"published_at":1776421856,"reference":[],"registered_at":0,"relationships":[],"rid":"811n4-ejc52","status":"active","summary":"\u201cIf she still has the will to learn, and there is support to help her, who are we to stop her?\u201d Those words came from a traditional leader in Bauchi State, Nigeria. A man who had previously opposed girls returning to school after becoming mothers. He said them out loud, in a room full of community members, during a dialogue session led by TGLF Scholar Rashida Musa Mukaddas.","tags":["The Geneva Learning Foundation","Continuous Learning","Global Health","Outcomes","Peer Learning"],"title":"Ten years of peer learning and action: The Geneva Learning Foundation\u2019s Alumni, in their own words","updated_at":1776421870,"url":"https://redasadki.me/2026/04/17/ten-years-of-peer-learning-and-action-the-geneva-learning-foundations-alumni-in-their-own-words/","version":"v1"},{"abstract":"The headline number from the WHO Regional Office for Africa\u2019s new report is designed to reassure. Nearly 20 million measles deaths have been averted in the African Region since 2000, and 500 million children have been reached through routine immunization in one generation.","archive_url":null,"authors":[{"affiliation":[{"id":"https://ror.org/04h13ss13","name":"The Geneva Learning Foundation"}],"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Sadki","given":"Reda","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4051-0606"}],"blog":{"archive_collection":null,"archive_host":null,"archive_prefix":null,"archive_timestamps":null,"authors":null,"canonical_url":null,"category":"educationalSciences","community_id":"7e26491f-41c6-4665-9088-5aa6643a1ba8","created_at":1731211871,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Learning to make a difference","doi":null,"doi_as_guid":false,"favicon":null,"feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://redasadki.me/feed/atom/","filter":null,"funding":null,"generator":"WordPress","generator_raw":"WordPress 6.7.1","home_page_url":"https://redasadki.me","id":"88b8caba-b485-4654-96ce-a21547abaab3","indexed":true,"issn":null,"language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","mastodon":"https://techhub.social/@redasadki","prefix":"10.59350","registered_at":0,"relative_url":null,"ror":null,"secure":true,"slug":"redasadki","status":"active","subfield":"3304","subfield_validated":null,"title":"Reda Sadki","updated_at":1776414966.842998,"use_api":true,"use_mastodon":false,"user_id":"0d34dfde-a007-4ec9-9bc6-7b0318fa2c5e"},"blog_name":"Reda Sadki","blog_slug":"redasadki","content_html":"\nThe headline number from the WHO Regional Office for Africa\u2019s new report is designed to reassure.
\n\n\n\nNearly 20 million measles deaths have been averted in the African Region since 2000, and 500 million children have been reached through routine immunization in one generation.
\n\n\n\nGavi\u2019s press release amplifies that figure, and Dr. Sania Nishtar calls it evidence of the \u201cimmense life-saving power of vaccines when immunisation is prioritised as a matter of policy.\u201d
\n\n\n\nThe second number is less reassuring.
\n\n\n\nCoverage with the second dose of measles-containing vaccine in the African Region reached 55% in 2024, and coverage with the first dose has stagnated around 70% for a decade.
\n\n\n\nMeasles transmission cannot be interrupted until both doses exceed roughly 95% in every community, not just on average.
\n\n\n\nThe report buries this tension in careful language about progress being \u201cuneven, and even slowing.\u201d
\n\n\n\nWhat is significant in the WHO AFRO report is the recognition, on page after page, that the African Region is now off track for six of the seven Immunization Agenda 2030 impact goals, and that no vaccine in the Region has coverage above 90 percent.
\n\n\n\nMeasles, which the report explicitly treats as \u201ca tracer of immunization programme performance,\u201d is telling us something uncomfortable about what vaccines alone can and cannot do.
\n\n\n\nThe report is rigorous on outputs and careful on inputs.
\n\n\n\nIt documents 44 countries that have introduced the second measles dose, 622 million supplementary doses delivered, and three sub-Saharan African states, Cabo Verde, Mauritius and Seychelles, achieving measles and rubella elimination in 2025.
\n\n\n\nIt also documents a resurgence of large or protracted measles outbreaks between 2022 and 2024, with reactive campaigns in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, and outbreak preparedness plans in 14 priority countries.
\n\n\n\nWhat the report largely leaves out is the social infrastructure on which all of this depends.
\n\n\n\nThe foreword by WHO\u2019s Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Mohamed Yakub Janabi, reminds readers that \u201cbehind the numbers in the report, are children and their parents,\u201d and that \u201cthe real measure of progress is the wellbeing and overall health of our communities.\u201d
\n\n\n\nBut when the text turns to challenges, it lists population growth, weak health systems, climate change, humanitarian crises and political instability.
\n\n\n\nTrust appears nowhere on that list, and vaccine confidence is not measured anywhere in the report.
\n\n\n\nThat omission matters because the global landscape has changed.
\n\n\n\nGlobally, the World Health Organization reported in late 2025 that measles deaths fell by 88 percent between 2000 and 2024, and that more than 60 million deaths have been averted by measles vaccination since 1974.
\n\n\n\nIn the same breath, WHO warned that cases are surging, with 30 million children left under-protected in 2024 alone.
\n\n\n\nNature called the pattern a \u201cspike\u201d across measles, polio and tuberculosis, tied not to biology but to eroding immunization and eroding trust.
\n\n\n\nSome observers describe the United States situation bluntly as \u201cthe perfect storm: measles resurgence in an era of vaccine disinformation and the dismantling of public health.\u201d
\n\n\n\nThis is the context the AFRO report does not fully name.
\n\n\n\nA global right-wing and libertarian backlash against vaccination, amplified by the COVID-19 infodemic and increasingly coordinated with populist politics, has collapsed measles coverage in communities where it was once taken for granted, first in Europe and North America, now spreading through digital networks that respect no border.
\n\n\n\nThe scientific consensus that measles-containing vaccines are safe and effective has not moved.
\n\n\n\nWhat has moved is the social contract around them.
\n\n\n\nHeidi Larson, the anthropologist who founded the Vaccine Confidence Project, has spent two decades making a point that global health institutions have been slow to absorb.
\n\n\n\n\u201cWe do not have a misinformation problem,\u201d she writes. \u201cWe have a relationship problem.\u201d Misinformation can be deleted, she argues, but the distrust that allows it to stick is what remains.
\n\n\n\nHer book Stuck traces vaccine rumors from 19th-century smallpox protests to 21st-century polio boycotts, and concludes that digital media has amplified risk perception without being its single cause.
\n\n\n\nLarson\u2019s team has documented how quickly confidence can collapse when trust is broken.
\n\n\n\nAfter the 2017 Dengvaxia controversy in the Philippines, the share of respondents who \u201cstrongly agreed\u201d that vaccines are important fell from 93 percent to 32 percent in three years, and strong agreement that vaccines are safe fell from 82 percent to 21 percent.
\n\n\n\nThat collapse rippled into measles and polio uptake, not only dengue.
\n\n\n\nThe lesson, Larson insists, is that confidence is a leading indicator, not a lagging one, and that \u201can extraordinary effort will be needed to sustain confidence in vaccines, given the unprecedented level of misinformation being propagated about them, even from official sources.\u201d
\n\n\n\nFramed through Larson\u2019s work, the WHO AFRO report reads differently.
\n\n\n\nThe report\u2019s quiet pivot from the \u201cnational\u201d to the \u201csub-national\u201d in its concluding paragraphs is not just a technical recommendation.
\n\n\n\n\u201cFocus on building or rebuilding resilient immunization systems at sub-national level is central to containing prevalent immunisation inequities and sustaining coverage at no less than 90 percent,\u201d the report states.
\n\n\n\nRead alongside Larson, that sentence is an acknowledgement that the remaining work may be less about cold chains or vial sizes and more about relationships between health workers and the communities they serve, built or broken one district at a time.
\n\n\n\nThe most direct evidence that trust, not technology, is the binding constraint comes from the health workers themselves.
\n\n\n\nAt Teach to Reach, hundreds of practitioners have contributed structured experiences of measles outbreaks and prevention across more than a dozen countries.
\n\n\n\nTheir accounts read like field notes from a long negotiation over credibility.
\n\n\n\nConsider Dr. Khalid Hussain Memon, a public health specialist in Sindh, Pakistan, describing a single street of seven \u201crefusal houses\u201d in Golimar.
\n\n\n\nAfter a measles case in the neighborhood led to severe post-measles pneumonia in an unvaccinated child, Memon\u2019s team stayed in contact with the family through the child\u2019s recovery.
\n\n\n\n\u201cI and my team remained in touch with parents of the child,\u201d he recounted. \u201cAfter recovery of the child, we contacted the mother of the child and made her realize that all her sufferings were due to non-vaccination of her child against measles. She later became our social mobilizer and visited all refusal houses for measles vaccine, along with vaccination teams, and told them her story.\u201d
\n\n\n\nA similar point comes from Madagascar, where a UNICEF social and behavior change consultant, Souleymane Kagambega, put it almost lyrically. \u201cThere were no more eloquent people than the victims of measles within the communities. There was no better lesson for caregivers than the suffering these children around us were experiencing.\u201d
\n\n\n\nNeither of these statements fits comfortably in an outbreak report.
\n\n\n\nNeither would appear in a coverage table.
\n\n\n\nBoth describe the mechanism by which population immunity is actually rebuilt after it has been lost.
\n\n\n\nThe same theme surfaces in Cameroon, where a laboratory scientist described being surprised not by the outbreak itself but by the silence that preceded it.
\n\n\n\n\u201cWhat surprised us was the fact that that the health facility had had cases previously and did not report them.\u201d
\n\n\n\nReporting, like vaccination, is a behavior that depends on trust.
\n\n\n\nIt collapses first at the edges of systems, and it recovers last.
\n\n\n\nCommunity-based surveillance, which the Teach to Reach contributors discuss repeatedly, is the operational form of this insight.
\n\n\n\nCommunity health workers, volunteers, and in one Nigerian account, \u201clocal medicine vendors\u201d around a hospital, are trained to recognize fever and rash and to alert formal services.
\n\n\n\nWhen Dr. Mulungula Walasa describes a campaign in the Kalambayi Health Zone of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, his emphasis is relational, not technical.
\n\n\n\n\u201cThis approach allowed the local community to take ownership of the campaign and thus made it possible to vaccinate a large number of children.\u201d
\n\n\n\nSome formalists may dismiss such field stories as feel-good anecdotes.
\n\n\n\nWe posit that they are significant, credible evidence of the social contract around vaccination being renegotiated in real time, in precisely the districts where the WHO AFRO report concedes coverage is lowest.
\n\n\n\nThe Lancet correspondence on peer learning in immunisation programmes, published in late 2024, frames the problem at the national level.
\n\n\n\nImmunization leaders operate in dynamic sociopolitical contexts where evidence is incomplete and decisions cannot wait for the next randomized trial.
\n\n\n\nPeer learning across national programmes, the authors argue, is the only credible way to align strategy with implementation reality.
\n\n\n\nWe need to extend that argument to the local leaders who are the interface with communities.
\n\n\n\n\u201cImplementation challenges are situated, and solved, at the local levels,\u201d we wrote in 2025, and peer learning that stops at national EPI managers misses precisely the layer where trust is built and measles is stopped.
\n\n\n\nOur account of Gavi-supported, TGLF-facilitated work in C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire and Nigeria documents thousands of sub-national practitioners contributing detailed experiences and analyzing each other\u2019s strategies at scale.
\n\n\n\nThe C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire case study, where Mathieu N\u2019Guessan\u2019s team raised second-dose measles coverage in Bouak\u00e9 North-East from under 30 percent to 96 percent in a year, is a story of re-establishing relationships with community health workers, religious leaders, and caregivers who had never met MCV2 before.
\n\n\n\nThis is where the AFRO report, the Lancet, and Larson\u2019s trust research converge.
\n\n\n\nNational peer learning tells ministries what other ministries are doing.
\n\n\n\nSub-national peer learning tells districts what other districts have tried, including with refusal houses in Golimar, riverine communities in Bakassi, or koranic schools in Dawakin Tofa.
\n\n\n\nOnly the second can repair the relationship problem that underpins trust, because relationships are always local.
\n\n\n\nThe immediate implication for WHO, Gavi, and ministries of health is that measles coverage targets cannot be hit with supply-side instruments alone.
\n\n\n\nCampaign counts and dose deliveries are necessary, and the AFRO report documents them in detail.
\n\n\n\nThey are not sufficient.
\n\n\n\nVaccine confidence, in both Larson\u2019s and Teach to Reach\u2019s evidence, behaves more like a financial market than a pipeline, and it is volatile under political pressure.
\n\n\n\nFor donors, the implication is uncomfortable.
\n\n\n\nThe hardest-to-reach children, whom the AFRO report names as the largest remaining gap, live in communities where trust in health services is thinnest, where rumors travel fastest, and where returns on investment are measured in years, not quarters.
\n\n\n\nFinancing structures that reward short-term campaign coverage are poorly matched to this work.
\n\n\n\nFinancing that supports sustained peer learning networks at district level, and listens systematically to what frontline workers actually experience, is better matched but institutionally harder to justify.
\n\n\n\nFor immunization leaders specifically, three practical consequences follow.
\n\n\n\nThe WHO AFRO report closes with an appeal for continued investment and strong political commitment.
\n\n\n\nThat appeal is correct, and overdue.
\n\n\n\nIt is also incomplete.
\n\n\n\nThe measles resurgence of the 2020s is not a failure of vaccines, which work as well as they ever have, nor primarily a failure of supply, which is better than at any point in history.
\n\n\n\nIt is a failure of trust, accumulating slowly in some places and collapsing suddenly in others, and it is being actively cultivated by political movements that see public health as an adversary rather than a commons.
\n\n\n\nThe question the report does not ask, and that the global immunization community can no longer avoid, is this one.
\n\n\n\nIf measles is the tracer of programme performance, what is the tracer of trust, and who is accountable for measuring it before the next outbreak arrives?
\n\n\n\nThe Geneva Learning Foundation offers a free peer learning course built entirely on the measles experiences shared at Teach to Reach. In about six hours of self-paced learning, health workers study what actually worked in other districts across early case detection, community engagement, vaccine supply management, second-dose coverage, and outbreak preparedness. Participants reflect on their own context and exchange feedback with colleagues facing similar challenges. The course is available in English and French, and it is open to anyone working in immunization or primary health care.
\n\n\n\nAnother day, another new model. Opus 4.7 is out. Right away it\u2019s immediately noticeable how it shuts down pretty much any conversation about biology that even remotely appears dual-use. These prompts triggered a safety shutdown: \u201cWhat is the role of gain- and loss-of-function mutations in pathogen evolution?\u201d \u2026 \u201cGive me media conditions for culturing SARS-CoV-2\u201d \u2026 \u201cWhat factors influence whether a pathogen spreads via droplets versus aerosols?\u201d and several others I tried. What\u2019s interesting is, as soon as you get a refusal from Opus 4.7, Claude will invite you to ask the same question on Sonnet 4, which happily answers.
Meanwhile, OpenAI released GPT-Rosalind, their frontier reasoning model built to support research across biology, drug discovery, and translational medicine.
Arjun Krishnan: What is the PhD actually for?. A response to Prachee Avasthi\u2019s \u201cFree the PhD\u201d and a self-critique of Krishnan\u2019s own preprint on sequencing AI use in doctoral training. Both pieces agree that PhD programs waste protected time on the wrong things, but Krishnan argues that compressing content acquisition into AI-assisted sessions risks producing scientists who can articulate a field\u2019s frontier without being able to navigate it. His resolution: the durable case for foundational expertise isn\u2019t \u201cAI can\u2019t do this yet\u201d but that science requires humans who can be genuinely accountable for claims, direct inquiry toward questions worth asking, and provide real transparency about their reasoning. See also:
NIH Highlighted Topic: Research on Chatbots and their Usage. NIH posted a new Highlighted Topic (not a NOFO, but a signal of where institutes want to see investigator-initiated applications) on the benefits and harms of chatbot use in health contexts. The scope is broad: automation bias, behavioral dependency, substitution for professional care, effects on decision-making and autonomy, and safeguards for at-risk populations. Lots of participating ICOs. If you\u2019re doing any research on LLM-based tools and health outcomes, this is NIH telling you there\u2019s a welcome mat out. Apply through a PA; topic expires April 2027.
Randy Au: Code review for data (and non-SWE) folks. A practical, opinionated walkthrough of how Au approaches code review as a data person rather than a software engineer, with the core stance that your job is to help the code get better, not gatekeeping. He also makes a good observation about how LLMs have changed the review process: they\u2019re useful for translating unfamiliar code into plain language so you can engage at the architectural level, but they still can\u2019t substitute for a human who understands what the team is actually trying to accomplish.
Ally Piechowski: The Git Commands I Run Before Reading Any Code. 5 git one-liners that give you a diagnostic picture of a codebase before you open a single file: churn hotspots, bus factor, bug clusters, commit velocity, and revert frequency. Pairs nicely with the Randy Au code review piece above, since both are about figuring out what\u2019s actually going on in someone else\u2019s code before you start forming opinions.
Separately, the New Yorker and the New York Times published very interesting long reads about Sam Altman and Satoshi Nakamoto. First, in the New Yorker, Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz: Sam Altman May Control Our Future. Can He Be Trusted?. Their investigation draws on interviews with more than 100 people in Altman\u2019s orbit. The portrait that emerges is of someone with an unusual combination of interpersonal charm and indifference to the consequences of deception. Altman responded with a blog post acknowledging mistakes while framing the broader AI competition as a \u201cring of power\u201d dynamic that distorts everyone\u2019s behavior.
Writing in the New York Times, John Carreyrou: Who Is Satoshi Nakamoto? My Quest to Unmask Bitcoin\u2019s Creator. Carreyrou broke the Theranos story spent over a year on this investigation and came away pointing at Adam Back, the British cryptographer who invented Hashcash (the proof-of-work system Bitcoin\u2019s mining is built on). Back went quiet on cryptography mailing lists during Satoshi\u2019s active years, resurfaced weeks after Satoshi vanished, and had written extensively about nearly every technical element of Bitcoin years before it launched. A stylometric analysis of nonstandard hyphenation patterns across hundreds of crypto mailing list authors matched Back. There was a really good hour-long episode of The Daily covering this one.
Comparing Posit Assistant and Claude Code: How does Posit Assistant differ from Claude Code? Sara Altman and Simon Couch demonstrate three ways Posit Assistant differs from Claude Code for data tasks: built-in R session access, easier data visualization workflow, and support for iterative data analysis.
: A professor's use case for AI generated papers. Cunningham bans AI from his stats and econometrics courses because he notes the 10-20 hour problem sets and the frustration of failing are where learning actually happens. But he found one use case he's comfortable with: he had Claude Code write three complete example papers (descriptive, predictive, causal inference) to illustrate what each genre looks like as a finished manuscript, because writing those himself would have been enormously time-intensive and he's not confident he'd do the descriptive and predictive genres well. Scott uses AI constantly in his own work but won't assign it to students, and he's honest that the line he's drawing is pragmatic, not principled.
Martin Frigaard: Who is this for? A reflection on how IDE-integrated LLM assistants are changing the way Martin thinks about problems, not just how he solves them. Complementary cognitive artifacts (maps, the abacus) transfer understanding you can retain after the tool is gone, while competitive ones (calculators, GPS, LLMs) leave you no better than when you started. Martin finds he actually prefers working in his restricted environment without IDE assistants, where communicating with an LLM looks more like composing a letter to a pen pal than approving autocomplete suggestions.
The Promise of AI and AI Agents: Another installment from at . This video discusses When AI can act and not just advise: who should be in control, and where does the value actually land?
Simon Couch: LLMs running on my laptop can drive coding agents now. A follow-up to Couch\u2019s December post where no local model could complete even a simple refactoring eval. Four months later, Qwen 3.5 and Gemma 4 both score 9/10, matching frontier models on the same benchmark. Neither is close to Opus 4.6 as a general coding partner, but both run at ~53 tok/s on a 48GB M4 Pro, which is surprisingly close to Sonnet 4.6\u2019s API throughput, and that\u2019s enough to keep you unblocked on a flight with miserable WiFi.
New papers & preprints:
Fast and accurate multiple-protein-sequence alignment at scale with FAMSA2
BioClaw: Human-Bot Research Collaboration Ecosystems in Group Chats
SkillClaw: Let Skills Evolve Collectively with Agentic Evolver
PaperOrchestra: A Multi-Agent Framework for Automated AI Research Paper Writing
Accelerated long-read variant calling with Clair3 for whole-genome sequencing
Our rescue dog, Luka, is a very traumatised soul. He spent eight years living in a shelter, with no home comforts, in the harsh Bosnian climate. He is a constantly anxious boy. Over the course of three years, we have managed to calm him down, to make him into a happy dog, who has a home and is bonded with my wife, Helen (and, to some much lesser extent, me). People have remarked on what a different dog he is, now. He is sociable. He is bouncy and happy. He goes to training classes and does well there, as well as having a whale of a time.
\n
But he still gets extremely frightened in certain situations. One of these, for example, is when there are fireworks. These send him cowering and hiding in fear. He hates them. The other example, and the one around which this post will centre, is when the doorbell goes. This can actually be a knock at the door, the doorbell ringing, or somebody just walking up to the house from outside. Our other dog, Robyn, makes this worse by encouraging Luka. But when this happens, he goes into a total, overexcited, barking frenzy that is a combination of fear, anxiety, and excitement all rolled into one. Normally, when this happens, I can calm him down by throwing some treats so he can play the \u201cfind-it\u201d game, or getting him to sit and thereby redirecting his attention into a positive training model.
\nLast Tuesday, I did not do these things, and I was stupid. Instead of trying to calm Luka down first, I instead walked past him when he was in this state, as I was going to the front door to answer it. In his hyper-excited state, he bit me. The bite was bad. I am extremely lean, and so the bite exposed the bone in my leg. As I am immunocompromised, there was a severe infection risk, so it had to be treated carefully. I was taken to hospital. In hospital they did a surgical wash and debridement. Then, because my haemoglobin was already extremely low due to kidney failure, they gave me 3 units of blood transfusion. As I write this, I am planning to go to hospital next week to discuss the potential need for a skin graft surgery on the leg.
\nIf I could have those two seconds again, I would have played this scenario very differently. I am a relatively experienced dog owner and I just forgot for two seconds what I should have been doing, which was to calm Luka before doing anything that involves walking past him when he\u2019s in that state.
\nAnd now, our lives will be altered, and Luka\u2019s life will be altered too, just because of two seconds of stupidity. The first thing we had to contend with was (well-meaning) people telling us that Luka should either be put down or rehomed (the other thing people say, with good intent, is that \u201cMartin\u2019s safety must come first\u201d \u2013 of course, we know that). As the shelter told us though, they would not be able to rehome Luka in the UK after he has been responsible for such a bite. The only rehoming option would be to go back to Bosnia, back to the shelter where he had faced such previous trauma. As for putting Luka to sleep, this is simply not an option. I love this dog. It\u2019s a clich\u00e9, but he is a member of our family. I have spent years gaining his trust and making him feel secure in my presence, even though I am not his favourite human. Furthermore, it is not an option because we must, by contract, consult with the shelter from whom we rehomed him before making such a decision, and, clearly, they would rather take him back than have this outcome.
\nI think quote a few people do not understand why I am happy to continue living with Luka. For many people, all they can see now is a dangerous animal that in their view would be better put to sleep. First, though, I know that in 99% of circumstances, Luka is not dangerous. I also know, in the 1% of times where he could be, how I should behave to handle this; and I messed this up last week. Second, we now have a set of safety practices in our house that means that Luka cannot get to me when he is in any kind of frenzy or defensive mode. Yes, it\u2019s now a total pain, but it is far better to put safety first, over convenience.
\nBut in terms of forgiveness, I do not blame Luka for this accident. It was an unfortunate congregation of circumstances that led to this. I was the one who made a mistake, around a traumatised animal. Also, I should note that I have always taken a calculated risk. Inviting an animal to live in one\u2019s home comes with inherent risks. One of those is that a dog might bite you. This is just part of the decision calculus that you need to make. You can never guarantee that an animal will definitely, under no circumstances, bite.
\nHowever, we now have a series of safety procedures that we will put in place that will mean that hopefully we will never encounter something like this again. Luka will always have a house line/lead/leash on him so that Mrs. Eve can grab him if needed and keep him under control. The dogs will be shut outside if I am around downstairs or even tethered inside if we are all in the same room, just so that if the doorbell goes, Luka cannot, physically, reach me. We are also beginning muzzle training with Luka, and are speaking to the vet next week about some anti-anxiety medications for him. I will never go to the door/walk past Luka when he is in this state, ever again. I will remain seated and look away in a non-threatening manner. We are working on solutions to the doorbell/knock situation. We have a behaviourist in regular contact as this plan evolves.
\nThere is now a great deal of healing to be done. On the one hand, my leg needs to heal and it\u2019s going to take a very, very long time (especially with norovirus and a chest infection on top). On the other hand though, Luka has been deeply traumatised by this event and will require much psychological care and love. He knows that something went wrong at that moment and the atmosphere in the house has not been the same since. The other day he was shaking. Then he has gone into other rooms and hidden. All this despite the fact, I must stress, I did not even tell him off for biting me, let alone raise my voice at him or anything. I simply yelped in pain and then Mrs. Eve pulled him off me, told him \u201cno\u201d firmly, and shut him in the sitting room. You would think, from his terror, that I had attacked him or something! (I assure you, I categorically have not.) But the situation, now, is that we need to give him time to rebuild his trust and confidence. He is going to need days to decompress and then several weeks to settle back into a new pattern of life. From there, I will be able to work once more on training him to trust me and for him to feel comfortable in my presence.
\nAnd this brings me really to the crux of my thinking about dogs. I suppose really, logically, it is very sensible to say that if a dog bites you, it cannot live with you. But with the things I know about Luka, I have come to a different perspective on why we have dogs. We adopt older, slightly difficult dogs who need a home. We could make our lives much easier by adopting younger dogs with a home-life experience. Instead, we have one psychologically traumatised older boy and one older bitch with only three legs, my dear Robyn. We didn\u2019t really pick these dogs because we thought that they would make our lives easier. We instead chose them because we thought that we could give them a better life and they seemed deserving (although there are thousands of deserving dogs and we can only help a select, tiny few). The reward I get from having Luka has been in seeing him grow from a frightened shell of a dog into a confident, loving boy, who was having a great time in life. This is what he gives me. We now, sadly, though, have a serious setback in this personal growth. But I will work with him again to bring him back from this brink and I will not abandon him to a life of frightened misery, torn away from his bonded human, in a harsh climate far away.
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59348/1mp5y-ae341","funding_references":null,"guid":"https://doi.org/10.59348/1mp5y-ae341","id":"ffa94da9-560a-4379-ae0d-0ea0b395fe17","image":"https://eve.gd/images/dogs.jpg","images":[{"alt":"An image of three dogs running towards the camera","src":"https://eve.gd/images/dogs.jpg"}],"indexed":true,"indexed_at":1776433472,"language":"en","parent_doi":null,"published_at":1776384000,"reference":[],"registered_at":0,"relationships":[],"rid":"y1fhe-ygd41","status":"active","summary":"Our rescue dog, Luka, is a very traumatised soul. He spent eight years living in a shelter, with no home comforts, in the harsh Bosnian climate. He is a constantly anxious boy. Over the course of three years, we have managed to calm him down, to make him into a happy dog, who has a home and is bonded with my wife, Helen (and, to some much lesser extent, me). People have remarked on what a different dog he is, now. He is sociable.","tags":[],"title":"Thinking About Dogs","updated_at":1776384000,"url":"https://eve.gd/2026/04/17/thinking-about-dogs/","version":"v1"},{"abstract":"The PHP library that renders article citations in Open Journal Systems (OJS) will change maintenance hands from the library\u2019s creator, Sebastian B\u00f6ttger, to PKP. What does citeproc-php do? For those of you unfamiliar, citeproc-php is the server-side library that takes raw article metadata (author names, titles, publication dates, DOIs) and transforms it into formatted citations [\u2026] The post citeproc-php is under new management!","archive_url":null,"authors":[{"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Racy","given":"Famira"}],"blog":{"archive_collection":null,"archive_host":null,"archive_prefix":null,"archive_timestamps":null,"authors":null,"canonical_url":null,"category":"socialScience","community_id":"77c8c2e4-ebda-4e7c-9458-6c06b604344b","created_at":1752226126.418889,"current_feed_url":null,"description":null,"doi":null,"doi_as_guid":false,"favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/77c8c2e4-ebda-4e7c-9458-6c06b604344b/logo","feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://pkp.sfu.ca/feed/atom","filter":null,"funding":null,"generator":"WordPress","generator_raw":"WordPress","home_page_url":"https://pkp.sfu.ca/news/","id":"1fc8db8d-6943-4efd-8a78-7723c41ab59f","indexed":true,"issn":null,"language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","mastodon":null,"prefix":"10.59350","registered_at":0,"relative_url":null,"ror":null,"secure":true,"slug":"pkp","status":"active","subfield":"1710","subfield_validated":null,"title":"Public Knowledge Project","updated_at":1776414866.774471,"use_api":null,"use_mastodon":false,"user_id":null},"blog_name":"Public Knowledge Project","blog_slug":"pkp","content_html":"The PHP library that renders article citations in Open Journal Systems (OJS) will change maintenance hands from the library\u2019s creator, Sebastian B\u00f6ttger, to PKP.
\nFor those of you unfamiliar, citeproc-php is the server-side library that takes raw article metadata (author names, titles, publication dates, DOIs) and transforms it into formatted citations using Citation Style Language (CSL) styles including APA, MLA, Chicago, Vancouver, and more.
\nIn OJS, this library works behind the scenes of the Citation Style Language plugin. When a reader clicks \u201cHow to Cite\u201d on an article page, or when a journal manager selects a citation style under Settings, citeproc-php generates the formatted output.
\nFor OJS users: Nothing immediate. Your citation displays will continue working exactly as they do now. The plugin settings in your dashboard remain unchanged.
\nFor developers: The citeproc-php library has moved to the PKP organization under Github and PKP will take an active role in its steering and release management. Little else will change \u2013 PKP would like to continue working with the active contributor community already supporting the library.
\nFor the broader audience: PKP has long benefited from, and frequently contributed to, 3rd-party Free and Open Source (FOSS) libraries like citeproc-php. As good FOSS citizens, PKP recognizes the value of a strong ecosystem of support and contribution; this move to formally maintaining citeproc-php is done in recognition of the need for material support for the tools we all rely upon.
\nThe handover to PKP makes strategic sense since citeproc-php\u2019s primary consumer is OJS and therefore PKP has a strong interest in keeping the library secure and updated.
\nThe PKP team would like to thank Sebiastian B\u00f6ttger for his excellent work supporting the scholarly publishing community for many years!
\nThe handover discussion can be found in GitHub #200. The new pkp/citeproc-php GitHub page can be found here.\u00a0
The post citeproc-php is under new management! appeared first on Public Knowledge Project.
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/r58bv-8dm69","funding_references":null,"guid":"https://pkp.sfu.ca/?p=18764","id":"d8fec180-e406-436f-9a9f-00613a903c03","image":"https://pkp.sfu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Citeproc-php-April-2026-WP-May-issue-1024x576.jpg","images":[{"alt":"Stockholm Archipelago photo by PKP's Jason Nugent represents the distinct yet deeply interconnected nature of landscapes, ecosystems, and infrastructures, a theme of PKP's Community Newsletter, Archipelago.","height":"576","sizes":"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px","src":"https://pkp.sfu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Citeproc-php-April-2026-WP-May-issue-1024x576.jpg","srcset":"https://pkp.sfu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Citeproc-php-April-2026-WP-May-issue-1024x576.jpg, https://pkp.sfu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Citeproc-php-April-2026-WP-May-issue-300x169.jpg, https://pkp.sfu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Citeproc-php-April-2026-WP-May-issue-768x432.jpg, https://pkp.sfu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Citeproc-php-April-2026-WP-May-issue-1536x864.jpg, https://pkp.sfu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Citeproc-php-April-2026-WP-May-issue.jpg","width":"1024"},{"src":"https://pkp.sfu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Citeproc-php-April-2026-WP-May-issue-1024x576.jpg"}],"indexed":true,"indexed_at":1776374604,"language":"en","parent_doi":null,"published_at":1776373941,"reference":[],"registered_at":0,"relationships":[],"rid":"gg4fn-qbc59","status":"active","summary":"\n \n The PHP library that renders article citations in Open Journal Systems (OJS) will change maintenance hands from the library\u2019s creator, Sebastian B\u00f6ttger, to PKP.\n \n\nWhat does citeproc-php do? For those of you unfamiliar, citeproc-php is the server-side library that takes raw article metadata (author names, titles, publication dates, DOIs) and transforms it into formatted citations using Citation Style Language (CSL)","tags":["Community Newsletter","Citations","Citeproc-php","FOSS","Metadata"],"title":"citeproc-php is under new management!","updated_at":1776373941,"url":"https://pkp.sfu.ca/2026/04/16/citeproc-php-is-now-managed-by-pkp/","version":"v1"},{"abstract":"Matt and I were discussing a paper from last year, Korneisel and Maddin (2025) on the evolution of the atlas\u2013axis complex. (It\u2019s excellent, by the way. Really comprehensive.) Mike: Atlases are so weird.","archive_url":null,"authors":[{"affiliation":[{"id":"https://ror.org/0524sp257","name":"University of Bristol"}],"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Taylor","given":"Mike","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1003-5675"}],"blog":{"archive_collection":22153,"archive_host":null,"archive_prefix":"https://wayback.archive-it.org/22153/20231105213934/","archive_timestamps":null,"authors":[{"name":"Mike Taylor"}],"canonical_url":null,"category":"earthAndRelatedEnvironmentalSciences","community_id":"0e13541f-417e-46c0-a859-65927249df72","created_at":1675209600,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"SV-POW! ... All sauropod vertebrae, except when we're talking about Open Access. ISSN 3033-3695","doi":null,"doi_as_guid":false,"favicon":null,"feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://svpow.com/feed/atom/","filter":null,"funding":null,"generator":"WordPress.com","generator_raw":"WordPress.com","home_page_url":"https://svpow.com","id":"c6cbbd2e-4675-4680-8a3f-784388009821","indexed":false,"issn":"3033-3695","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","mastodon":null,"prefix":"10.59350","registered_at":1729882329,"relative_url":null,"ror":null,"secure":true,"slug":"svpow","status":"active","subfield":"1911","subfield_validated":true,"title":"Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week","updated_at":1776415343.729556,"use_api":true,"use_mastodon":false,"user_id":"04d03585-c8bb-40f2-9619-5076a5e0aed2"},"blog_name":"Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week","blog_slug":"svpow","content_html":"Matt and I were discussing a paper from last year, Korneisel and Maddin (2025) on the evolution of the atlas\u2013axis complex. (It’s excellent, by the way. Really comprehensive.)
\nMike: Atlases are so weird. It occurs to me that had the nomenclatural dice fallen differently, we might not even consider them vertebrae at all, just as we don’t consider metacarpals to be manual phalanges. We might have considered the axial skeleton to consist of skull, atlas, and a sequence of vertebrae starting with the axis. (And, yes, ribs, chevrons and sternal plates.)
\nMatt: Good point on […] the weirdness of the atlas. The atlas in particular really does feel like an embryonic segmentation error codified and exapted into a useful structure.
\nMike: Your mom is an embryonic segmentation error codified and exapted into a useful structure.
\n\n