At a time when multilateralism is under constraint, Louise Agersnap, who leads WHO’s Innovation Hub, reflects on the concept of the « metacrisis »—a fundamental questioning of our entire operating system—and how responses of fostering demand-led innovation, bridging cross-sector partnerships, and launching mechanisms such as the WHO Digital Innovation Investment Platform can contribute renewal.
Agersnap discusses opportunities and challenges in engaging with innovative approaches to promoting global health equity, and the importance of democratizing access to technologies like AI-enabled tools and robotic telesurgery. Ultimately, Agersnap encourages students, researchers and people interested in working in multilateralism to embrace the uncertainty of the moment as opportunity, leverage creativity and diversity in collaboration with other disciplines to have greater impact together.
Coordination: Juanita Uribe, Flavia Keller, Adrien Estève.
Featuring: Adam Talsma (host) and Louise Agersnap (guest).
Recording and editing: Marc Galvin, Research Office - Geneva Graduate Institute.
Music: C'est La Vie - NaTtA / www.jamendo.com
More about the new podcast series:
Multilateralism is often discussed in terms of diplomacy and high-level negotiations.Yet it is shaped every day by people working inside international organizations. This podcast series looks beyond policy debates to explore their experiences. Through conversations with practitioners, we hear about their paths into multilateral work, the challenges they navigate, and the routines and pressures that define decision-making from within. Each episode pairs these voices with academic perspectives, opening a space where practice and scholarship speak to one another. The goal is to offer students and a broader public a grounded, accessible way to understand how multilateralism actually works through the people who make it happen.