Background: Linking gLOCAL and COPC

The JBI gLOCAL Solution Room is a week-long global series of locally hosted, interactive events designed to provide pragmatic solutions to challenges in getting evidence into practice, bringing together clinicians, academics and policymakers to discuss how global evidence informs local practice and how local experience shapes global thinking in evidence-based healthcare. JBI explicitly frames “gLOCALization” as the simultaneous global and local nature of evidence generation, synthesis, transfer and implementation, emphasizing that evidence must be adapted to specific contexts given differences in economics, policy, systems and culture.

Sidney and Emily Kark were pioneering South African family physicians who introduced COPC to South Africa. They championed an integrated model combining population health needs assessment, community engagement, and primary care delivery in underserved areas, influencing South Africa’s National Health Act and Ward-Based Primary Health Care Outreach Teams today. Their legacy underscores COPC’s gLOCAL essence: adapting global primary care principles—like those from the 1978 Alma-Ata Declaration—to local contexts such as informal settlements and resource.

In India, community-oriented primary care has evolved through national initiatives such as the National Rural Health Mission and Ayushman Bharat, which emphasise decentralised, community-driven primary care. Frontline workers like Accredited Social Health Activist embody this approach by linking households with health systems. India’s COPC model adapts global principles to diverse local contexts, including rural, tribal, and underserved urban populations.

Climate change is significantly impacting water security in regions like South Africa and India, with over 1.8 billion people facing drought conditions as of 2022–2023 (IPCC, 2022), the annual costs associated with drought-related damages total approximately US$307 billion globally (UNU, 2026). South Africa, with only 450 mm of average rainfall, faces systemic risks, evidenced by the 2018 Cape Town crisis (NSWR, 2024; The Star, 2025). India may experience severe water stress due to increased demand driven by climate shifts. Potential solutions include wastewater treatment and reuse to address 40% of global freshwater needs by 2030, as well as nature-based solutions that enhance water retention and avert flood damages (DEA, 2024). Collaborative efforts between South Africa and India are crucial to share effective models and create actionable policies to mitigate future crises.

Despite remarkable advances in medical science, far too many lives are still lost each year due to gaps in awareness, access to vaccination, screening, and timely treatment. This gLOCAL solution provides a vital platform for sharing knowledge, strengthening collaboration, and renewing our collective commitment to ensuring that no woman dies from a disease we have the tools to prevent and cure. This gLOCAL solution focuses on the importance of eliminating cervical cancer, a disease that remains a significant yet largely preventable threat to women’s health worldwide.

This event embodies the gLOCAL framework by adapting global evidence to local contexts, bridging clinicians, academics, and policymakers across Ghana, South Africa, Cameroon, India, and beyond. The sessions will explore prevalence, cultural burdens, pregnancy, lifestyle interventions as well as patient voices. The program fosters bidirectional knowledge exchange, tailoring JBI evidence synthesis to diverse economics, policies, and cultures for pragmatic implementation.