The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a dramatic loss of human life worldwide and presents an unprecedented challenge to public health and the world of work. The economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic has been devastating: tens of millions of people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty while nearly half of the world’s 3.3 billion global workforce are at risk of losing their livelihoods. Millions of enterprises face an existential threat, forcing organizations to not only quickly adapt to maintain normal business operations, but to think differently about protecting the health of their employees and the communities they serve. As the world begins to chart a path to a new, post-pandemic normal, ICAP is lending its hard-won expertise in large-scale public health interventions to enable private sector leaders to navigate the ongoing crisis, making data-driven decisions grounded in public health best practices.
ContourGlobal—a United Kingdom-based enterprise that acquires and develops wholesale power generation facilities across fuel types and geographies—is meeting challenges to lives and livelihoods head-on and looking to the post-pandemic future with the support of ICAP. Through this partnership, ICAP will provide customized technical collaboration and support that enables ContourGlobal to proactively protect the health and safety of its employees in its countries of operation, protect business continuity and daily operations from the impact of the ongoing pandemic, and identify high-yield support approaches that decrease community transmission in priority countries and regions.
“What started as a health crisis could quickly devolve into an economic crisis, if appropriate measures are not taken across the private sector to protect employee health and, as a result, the continuity of day-to-day operations,” said Andrea Howard, director of the Clinical and Training Unit at ICAP and principal investigator of the new joint initiative. “With crisis-response efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic now in full motion globally, ICAP and ContourGlobal are leading the way to build sustainable, human-centered responses to ensure employee survival and business continuity.”
With more than 17 years of experience providing impactful and sustainable technical assistance, capacity building and implementation support to ministries of health and other stakeholders in more than 30 countries, ICAP’s teams of global and local experts combine forces to deliver the state-of-the-art approaches to tackling complex health service development, scale-up, and quality issues around the world. Over the course of the partnership with ContourGlobal, ICAP will provide on-call expertise, advising the company’s response to COVID-19 at the global, national, and community levels. Specific supports will enable ContourGlobal to deal with emerging transmission trends and technical developments in a timely manner and according to the unique needs of each plant setting; assist ContourGlobal leadership and country management teams to support employees, their families, and the vulnerable communities in which they work; and identify impactful opportunities to decrease community transmission, leveraging ongoing public and private investment in health and socio-economic responses in priority countries and regions.
As the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, ICAP continues to provide urgent and necessary support to our partners– including ministries of health, research organizations, large multilaterals, health care providers, and patients– in their responses to address the global health emergency and identify solutions to prevent new infections.
A major global health organization that has been improving public health in countries around the world for over 15 years, ICAP works to transform the health of populations through innovation, science, and global collaboration. Based at Columbia University in New York City, where it is part of the Mailman School of Public Health, ICAP has projects in more than 30 countries, working side-by-side with ministries of health and local partners to confront some of the world’s toughest health challenges. Through meaningful research, tailored technical assistance, effective training and education programs, and rigorous surveillance to measure and evaluate the impact of public health interventions, ICAP aims to realize a global vision of healthy people, empowered communities, and thriving societies.
