Podcast – Practicing Multilateralism – Collaboration with the Geneva Graduate Institute
Guest: Louise Agersnap
Host: Adam Talsma
At a time when multilateralism is under constraint, the Head of WHO’s Innovation Hub, Louise Agersnap, reveals how the organization is reimagining its role beyond traditional standard-setting. This conversation explores the concept of the « metacrisis »—a fundamental questioning of our entire operating system—and how WHO is responding by fostering demand-led innovation, bridging partnerships between public and private sectors, and launching platforms such as the Digital Innovation Investment Platform. Agersnap discusses the tension between maintaining WHO’s normative authority while testing new approaches, the challenge of democratizing access to technologies like AI-enabled tools and robotic telesurgery. Ultimately, she argues that building a more resilient and plural multilateralism requires more than institutional redesign; it must be grounded in the practices, commitments, and openness to experimentation of the people who shape it.
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
The podcast “Practicing Multilateralism” is produced through a collaboration between the Observatory on Multilateralism and International Organizations and the Geneva Graduate Institute.