Overview
The event will explore how theory, power and practice intersect in real-world efforts to shape healthier and more climate-resilient urban futures globally.
Date: 20 February 2026
Time: 17:30 – 19:00 GMT
Venue: Gatsby room, Chancellor’s Centre. Wolfson College, Barton Road, Cambridge CB3 9BB
Speakers
Catherine Kenyon,
Head of Programmes, Clean Air, Global Action Plan
Catherine Howarth,
CEO, Shareaction.
Sridhar Venkatapuram,
Associate Professor, Global Health and Philosophy, King’s College, London.
About
The speakers will explore how power, capital and corporate practice shape health and planetary outcomes across borders, sectors and generations, including how decisions made in global financial and corporate centres translate into lived health experiences and rooted realities in the majority world.
Drawing on civil society advocacy, responsible investment, and moral philosophy, the discussion will surface the structural tensions at the heart of transnational health governance, including the tensions between profit and prevention, fiduciary duty and public good, voluntary action and regulation, and short-term returns and long-term population health.
We will discuss concrete examples of actors attempting to shift norms, incentives and accountability within financial and corporate systems that are themselves powerful determinants of health. The discussion will consider what such approaches mean in practice for global contexts where regulatory capacity may be uneven, and health and climate risks are intensifying. The discussion will be anchored in questions of ethics and justice, reflecting on what responsibility, legitimacy and obligation mean when health harms are structurally produced and globally distributed, and exploring how ambitious action is negotiated, constrained and sometimes expanded within real-world coalitions.
Who Should Attend
This masterclass is open to students, practitioners and members of the public interested in how power, capital and corporate practice shape health and planetary outcomes across borders.
What to expect
The event will take place in person at Wolfson College and will be held in a fireside chat format, followed by a moderated discussion with the audience. The format is designed to encourage open, critical and constructive dialogue between speakers and participants.
Partners & Sponsors
Related Resources
- Mobilising Diaspora Intellectual Capital for Africa’s Urban Future – The Sankofa Working Paper (2026)
- Between profit and prevention: Industry, responsibility, and planetary health in practice
- Sankofa Dialogue 2026
- Making the ‘Urban’ Better: Planetary health conversations on building healthy sustainable cities in the era of COVID-19 and beyond…
- ISUH Africa Urban Health Community of Practice
