📝 Description
Learn about the critical debate between academia and real-world practice in addressing sexual misconduct in the aid sector. This video explores a decolonial approach, challenging traditional Western frameworks and highlighting the importance of community voices, lived experiences, and structural change.
The discussion is based on insights from experts who question the “myth of prevention” and emphasize transformative justice, ethical accountability, and culturally grounded solutions. �
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👉 Key topics covered:
Academia vs field realities in aid work
Decolonizing responses to sexual misconduct
Power dynamics and systemic inequality
Importance of local voices and justice
This content is essential for students, researchers, NGO workers, and anyone interested in global development, gender justice, and ethical practices in aid.
🔑 Keywords / Tags
academia vs practice, decolonial approach, sexual misconduct in aid, NGO ethics, humanitarian sector issues, gender justice, aid sector problems, decolonization, global south perspectives, power dynamics, feminist theory, transformative justice, safeguarding in NGOs, development sector, ethics in aid work
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#DecolonialApproach #SexualMisconduct #NGOEthics #AcademiaVsPractice #GenderJustice #HumanitarianAid #Decolonization #SocialJustice #AidSector #NoExcuse
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00:00When we talk about gender issues, we cannot talk about it in a vacuum as if they appear
00:04without any, yeah, without politicizing it, contextualizing it, historicization. I mean,
00:11we need to look at history, histories of our region, where it came from. And we always say,
00:16it's not about romanticizing what happened before.
00:22In today's episode, we speak to sociologists and practitioners, Dr. Noof Nazir-Edeen and Dr.
00:27Noor Abu-Asab. During our conversation, we address topics of a sexual nature that may
00:33be disturbing or triggering to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised.
00:41Welcome to the World Health Organization's Hashtag No Excuse Podcast. I am your host, Guni Dias.
00:50So let's get started. Welcome to the WHO Hashtag No Excuse Podcast, Noor Inouf.
00:57Thank you, Guni. Thank you so much for having us.
01:01So both of you are known for bridging divides between theory and practice, academia and activism.
01:09How do you do that? How do you merge a world that is, you know, focused on data and science
01:16and another one that is based on lived experience and stories?
01:23What is an academic theory without the lived experience and also without speaking to the
01:29people it's meant to be about? And at the same time, what is practice or activism if it's not
01:35informed by the knowledge and the learning we already have? We don't think of them as in binary
01:40terms. Although we do see, for example, we see activist movements saying academics are in their ivory
01:47towers. We also see academics saying, oh, activists do not really rely on the theories that we produce.
01:53But this tension is a barrier towards further understanding and deeper understanding of the
02:00social world we live in.
02:01Also, I remember when we were doing our PhDs, me and Noor in the in the UK, we felt that
02:08we are not
02:08being encouraged to theorize. So we were so much encouraged to bring the lived experiences of
02:15people or to describe women's experiences. My PhD was about women and class in refugee camps in Jordan,
02:22Palestinian refugee camps. We weren't pushed to theorize. And it made us think, why are we always
02:28pushed like to describe our lived experiences rather to theorize and write theory?
02:34Where was that pushback coming from?
02:37This is how academia manifests its colonial attitude in a way. So oftentimes, like when
02:44students come from the global south, and they're doing research-based projects, their supervisors tend to
02:52want to learn about their context. So what happens in that, in a way, is they push their students
02:57to describe their contexts rather than theorize about them, which prevents them from theorizing.
03:04And by the end of the day, that enables the supervisor to theorize, leaving the student
03:10without that access to bringing their own perspectives and theories.
03:15I want to pick your brains on the decolonial approach. I know you've written an important
03:20piece on that. What does it actually mean in practice? You spoke about it in the academia world.
03:27How does that show up in the aid sector? And what has been your experience around that?
03:34Yeah, decolonial. We've been working on this framework for the last seven, eight years.
03:39And I think it didn't just start seven, eight years. I think we've always thought about it,
03:44maybe in our brains, in our minds, in our even like spirituality. If you look at the aid sector,
03:50the NGO, the funding, we consider that as part of colonial structures in a way. Because if you have
03:59donor agendas, implementing projects in the Middle East, North African-Arabic-speaking countries,
04:05they come with a specific ideology. So that's why having a decolonial lens in the aid sector is
04:14really important because we need to contextualize the work. We need to politicize the work. We need
04:20to think about language, the politics of translation. What is being talked about? What language are we
04:26using? Also, what knowledge is considered best and what knowledge is not considered best?
04:31There has always been historically decolonial justice projects. Historically, we did not come up
04:38with that at all. It existed for a very, very long time. Decolonial justice projects, decolonial
04:45movements, etc. But what we noticed, particularly in the past 10 years, I would say, is that we would be
04:52in conferences talking about decolonizing the aid sector. And we'd be in conferences in academic
04:58settings as well, where they talk about decolonizing without actually thinking about colonized contexts.
05:05So it made us feel in a way that this is becoming really detached from the lived experiences and the
05:12realities of people who were formerly colonized and are still colonized and are being colonized.
05:19So that pushed us to think that we really need to, we need to find a definition. We need to
05:26think
05:26about it. We cannot just use decolonizing without framing it and also giving it foundations in a way.
05:34So it doesn't get appropriated. It also doesn't get whitewashed because it got to a point where you
05:39hear the most abusive, oppressive people saying we need to decolonize. So it just did not make sense.
05:46It did not sit well from that very simple perspective. So when we noticed that, that both
05:53North and myself, we decided to create a framework that's based on the lived experiences of people
05:58that grounds the lived experiences of people, and that does not make it just a buzzword.
06:06And similar to how localization has been thought about within the sector, like with localization,
06:13there were international efforts, the grand bargain came in, and we now have localization indicators.
06:21We have, we have references for localization. We found that decolonizing also needs the same work.
06:27So we've created a framework that relies on specific analytical pillars that can be translated into
06:34action and practice within organizations in terms of whether we're doing research, whether we're doing
06:39development work, or whether we're even doing humanitarian work. And, and those, and these analytical
06:46pillars, they're eight, they basically propose that we need to be really sensitive towards context,
06:53without also compartmentalizing it. We also thought that we also need to consider politics when we're
06:59talking about decolonizing, because decolonizing is about power, and it's about standing up against
07:05power. And then we also thought that we need to be intersectional in our thinking, so we don't leave
07:11anyone behind. We also talked about power, power and relationality, because power and relationships
07:20are important as well.
07:22The politicization, make things political. Like when we talk about gender issues, we cannot talk
07:27about it in a vacuum as if they appear without any, yeah, without politicizing it, contextualizing it.
07:35Historicization. I mean, we need to look at history, histories of our region, where it came from. And we
07:41always say it's not about romanticizing what happened before. It's about understanding history,
07:46because without understanding history, we cannot really inform the present and thinking about the
07:50future. Language and the politics of translation.
07:54And the most important one, radical self-reflexivity. Radical self-reflection, in fact. This is the first
08:02pillar. And it also entails that we need to look, we need to critique ourselves. We cannot always be
08:09in a defense mode. We would never progress, we'd never learn. So radical self-reflection basically calls
08:16for us to think about our own complicities in oppression as well. Because we're all complicit,
08:24whether we like it or not, we all contribute in a way or another. So just to think about that,
08:30to consider that, and to consider with it our positionality, how our positionalities can,
08:35for example, cause harm in some contexts. They can, for example, be marginalized in another.
08:43Yeah. Thanks for sharing that because that allows, these pillars allows people to frame it,
08:50to frame a context or a situation in a way that force reflection on what are some of the inherent
08:58biases. So thanks for sharing. Another aspect that you speak about is the myth of prevention,
09:06prevention, which is, I think for organizations like the WHO, prevention is at the heart of
09:15what they do in the context of prevention to sexual misconduct. And I think organizations know that
09:24it's inevitable to have risks of sexual misconduct. And the way they go about policies and training is
09:31to prevent from that happening or prepare a system to be able to respond if something happens. But you
09:38critique that and you challenge it. Tell us more. What's missing in that process or in that mindset?
09:46So for us, when we think about it that way, when we say, yeah, we're preventing sexual exploitation and
09:52abuse and harassment and other forms of harmful practices, it promises a lot. It puts a lot of
09:59pressure on organization. We've witnessed where organizations, like in some organization,
10:06there are some cases where harassment happened or sexual exploitation happened, and they were so
10:11scared and ashamed from saying it because they felt that they're failing. So for us, we cannot promise
10:19so much because we will always inflict harm. Acknowledging that and put it on the table, rightly so,
10:26and being self-reflective allows us to say, okay, we are trying to prevent, we are trying to protect,
10:33but we cannot promise so much because by the end of the day, things will always happen.
10:39Harm will always happen, no matter what, even if it was unintentional.
10:43When we also look at data and how we interpret the data, there are issues that we need to resolve
10:50around the indicators when we monitor our prevention systems as well, because we raise awareness around
10:56our complaints mechanisms, reporting channels, etc. At the same time, we put in policies in place to
11:06basically say that we are zero tolerant. We do not tolerate these abuses.
11:13Now, what we get, what the data we get from that would be, for example, if we are increasing awareness
11:19around reporting mechanisms, then reporting will increase. We will receive more cases. At the level,
11:25at the very logical level, the cases reported wouldn't look good in terms of prevention. So
11:33it also means that we also need to rethink about how prevention is framed and how we are assessing our
11:40prevention efforts as well. Like what indicators we're using? How are we reading these indicators as
11:46well? Just to bring another layer to this, because in the UN world, so some organizations call it
11:53prevention to sexual misconduct, prevention and response to sexual misconduct, and some call it
11:59protection to sexual misconduct. So that you talk about false promises or over promising?
12:06How are we conceptualizing protection? Like,
12:11those frameworks, international frameworks, they also lack an understanding of agency.
12:18If survivors and victims, they have different agencies. And I know, like, well-intentioned,
12:25like those organizations, they want to support those victims and survivors by giving them support.
12:30But there are other ways. We have to think outside of the box when we think about protection. Maybe some
12:35people need an apology. Maybe some people want to do like, I don't know, like work with also the
12:42perpetrators themselves, because they're part of the community. I mean, also, we need to do a power
12:46analysis when you think about perpetrators and victims. Who are these perpetrators? Who are these
12:51victims? Are they part of one community? We need to think about the agency of those victims. What do they
12:58need? They need reparations? What kind of reparation? Maybe psychosocial support to the perpetrator.
13:03So that's why those, the myth of prevention, like we need to think about it in how do we conceptualize
13:11protection and prevention as well?
13:13You mentioned reparations.
13:16Oh, okay.
13:20How, how would reparation look like for an organization? This is a very contentious,
13:27how to say topic to speak about, but I want to kind of hear your thoughts on reparations for victims
13:35and survivors. And also, I'm, you know, making a link as well on the decolonial approach as well.
13:43Because I know you spoke about this in, in, in your paper. So please tell us more.
13:50I mean, also the decolonial framework allows us to think about what kind of justice we want to
13:55achieve. Do we want also punitive justice? In some cases, it's great, but in other cases,
14:00it doesn't like do us any good to the community, to the perpetrators themselves, or even to the
14:05victims. So I guess reparation, it means, think about it from transformative and restorative justice.
14:11Like, why did this harmful practice happen? In the first place, understanding the root causes,
14:17rather than just solving the symptoms. In addition to that, the restorative and transformative
14:23justice approach, they allow us to think, okay, we understand why it happened. What,
14:27how can we repair it now? And reparation can, can take different forms. It can take, as I said,
14:33it can take maybe just an apology. It depends also on the agency of the victims, because I think
14:39victims and survivors do not share the same experience when it comes to harmful situations.
14:46If two, like we always have this example, if Noor and I were exposed to bullying, which we do
14:52in our trainings and our work, our experience towards bullying, it's not the same. Our reaction is not
14:58the same because of our upbringing, our childhood, like it can be so many things. So what I need,
15:04maybe it's completely different from what Noor's need as a victim, as a survivor. So I'm talking about
15:09bullying, but it can like, we can also think about it in terms of sexual harassment, sexual abuse.
15:13So that's why we need to think about, yes, victim centered approach. Yes, but not with the,
15:20with the tick the box exercise, with rather engaging with victims, engaging with what,
15:25with their communities. They're part of a larger community. They're part of an ecosystem. So we
15:31need to understand why that happened and also what kind of support, reparation we need to allow for.
15:37I would like to contribute with a story actually, because the real, a real story that happened,
15:44and this happened in a country in the MENA region and happened to some of our colleagues. Two,
15:49two women were in a taxi in Lebanon. And basically the, the taxi driver harassed them verbally with
15:57sexual and window. They felt uncomfortable. They took the, that late, they called up the company.
16:04They told them we were exposed to this. The company completely ignored them. They didn't do anything.
16:09So what they tried to do is just do a tiny campaign against that particular company because they did
16:16not take action. From the perspective of our colleagues and friends at that time, they felt
16:22that the taxi driver on his own comes from a refugee background, first of all. Second, he has a family
16:31and children. And after they did the public stunt against the company, the company offered to kick
16:37him out to fire him from his practice. So from our friend's perspective, and they took on a transformative,
16:47restorative justice approach in a way, they said, no, they would not be happy with the company firing that
16:54man, but they would be happy with the company imposing safeguarding trainings to their taxi drivers.
16:59So because from their perspective, it's the structural gaps that need to be addressed, not just the, the
17:07punishment for the individual. It's not a standalone incident. It's part of the system. It's structural.
17:13It's systematic. It's systematized. It's a, it's, it's embedded within the everyday. So this is what we
17:22lean towards when we particularly talk about reparations, they may look different, not for
17:29ever, like punishment would not satisfy everyone. From other, from some people's perspective,
17:35they want to prevent that from happening in the first place to others.
17:38Thanks for that story. It helped us really conceptualize what, what we mean by reparation and
17:45being victims of a victim survivor centered. You also speak about key concepts that are important
17:52to understand, uh, if an organization wants to better prevent or respond to sexual misconduct.
17:59And there's a specific term that caught my attention, which is structural sensitivity. So we hear,
18:06we know about cultural sensitivity, for example, talking about sexual misconduct is sensitive here.
18:12We can't talk about it in our culture because it's not acceptable, but you challenge that
18:18idea and you say it, it misses the point. Um, when we say cultural sensitivity and you
18:25switch to structural sensitivity, um, tell us more, what does that mean?
18:31Okay. So to, to break it down, basically. So culture is only one aspect of the social world around
18:41us and the structures that influence our every, our beings. And when we talk about culture, the thing
18:49is we live now in a world where in one household, you would find multiple cultures. My culture is very
18:57different from my families and my families within them also, like my brothers are very different from
19:03each other. So there isn't one singular, singular culture that exists even within the same country.
19:10You might find cultural trends when we think about culture, because we need to avoid cultural
19:16exceptionalism. Like if we come into communities, assuming that they don't talk about sex, we will
19:22never get to a point of them reporting sexual abuse or reporting or reporting any form of sexual violence.
19:30But when we, if we come to a community where we understand the structures that prevent
19:36them from speaking about sexual, sexual abuse, then we're more capable of understanding and addressing
19:43that sexual abuse. And when we talk about structural insensitivity, in particular political structures,
19:50other social structures, relational structures, environmental, and even economic. So that simplification of
19:58culture and just, and just be sensitive to the culture assumes a singular culture and assumes
20:04its exceptionalism as well.
20:06So basically what you're saying is that saying that this is culturally sensitive here is a bit
20:10of a lazy way of going about it. And it's much more complex and you can talk about it, but
20:16you just need
20:16to understand the context better with all these different pillars that influence and dimensions.
20:24If we move on to this topic that is, I think everyone can relate, which is about relationship at work.
20:33So just for the story, when we started at WHO this work, when we were doing open doors and we
20:41were
20:41speaking to the workforce and one thing that came out with this work, when we came out with the
20:48prevention to sexual misconduct, people were afraid that they couldn't have relationships with
20:55colleagues. And this famous phrase is, love is not allowed in at work, but actually it is,
21:01it's just that you need to disclose so that, you know, we make sure that there's no potential conflicts
21:08of interest. In your critique, in your paper, you observed that some organization, you know,
21:14apply this ban on all consensual relationships and that they, and you say that they actually
21:22increase the risk of misconduct. Tell us more.
21:25You cannot stop love. Like if two people, I think it's, it begins with as simple as you cannot prevent
21:33people from falling in love with each other. And the, and the working environment is one of the
21:38spaces where we meet people. Like we spend sometimes most people spend at least eight
21:43hours at work. That's, that's like one third of their day. So they're doomed to happen whether
21:50we like it or not. So I find that so rigid and I don't know, it compartmentalizes us in a
21:58way.
21:59So that's why a misconduct might happen because people are so scared of saying we are in a relationship
22:03or I know that person because they will be punished then. Yes. And it's also, and, and why it increases
22:10the chances for misconduct as well, because these relationships, if they exist in the dark,
22:15in a way, it does allow more room for abuse to occur. It's also, so from that perspective,
22:23it is always better to let people be, and then think about how to prevent or how to mitigate.
22:31Like if we don't want conflict of interest to exist in the workplace, we can think of ways
22:36to manage these relationships. We can, you want to add no. Yeah. Sorry. I got excited about consent.
22:44We talk about consent, consensual relationships. If we're two adults are consenting. So, so again,
22:51where is the consent in that respect? So we need to think about other ways of regulating those
22:58relationships rather than banning them. Yeah, no, no, for sure. I think that it's
23:06well said, well said. We, another important concept that you've been speaking along this conversation,
23:13but also is part of your work, which is the mapping power so that we understand this issue in, in
23:21more
23:21depth. Um, and I think when I was reading your work, I was thinking this could be also a way,
23:29a framework that supports the identification of risks of sexual misconduct. And so you break it
23:35into four types. There's a formal power, symbolic power, relation, relational power, and emotional power.
23:42Can you walk us through how these different types of power, uh, operate, you know, in real life and how
23:49can us understanding those different nuances can help us better prevent sexual misconduct?
23:56People would look at power in terms of the position the person occupies within the organization.
24:01However, what we're saying here is power is not just your position or the position you occupy,
24:08because you also have power from below. And that power from below is often the invisible,
24:14it's often the disregarded within organizational contexts. And what we mean by power from below,
24:21there might be someone, there might be two people within the same organization, someone with a high
24:27position, another with a more junior position, but the person with the more junior position might have
24:33more social power than the person in the high position, which can also allow for room for abuse
24:40of power. And this power needs to be considered. And particularly when we talk about collectivistic
24:45contexts, for example, the relational power plays a massive, massive, massive part in our everyday
24:52dynamics. So, and when we talk about relational power, you might find someone in a junior position
24:58with relationships with relationships with people in power within the overall community that could
25:05allow them to, to be abusive within their organizations as well.
25:09There is the emotional, maybe I could have an emotional power on my colleague who she or he,
25:16they might have a, like a senior positionality because of my, the way my charisma, the way I talk to
25:23them. I might have a symbolic power because I, I, I come from specific family name, for example.
25:30So looking at power only like a top-down approach, it's so simplistic and it would,
25:37we will lose so much. I don't know. We wouldn't catch the intricates and the complexities with how
25:44power is shaped and how we negotiate, maneuver those power structures.
25:49So, and also other forms of power that we need to take into consideration is for example, language,
25:56because we know of an organization, for example, they were scared of getting rid of a serial bully.
26:05Because there were several bullying complaints against this person because he was able of speaking
26:12English and he was the one point of contact with donors, not because he was the manager necessarily.
26:18So this is the nuance that we are inviting.
26:24And I want to also like say something else. I know that most organizations, INGOs, like all of those
26:31international protocols, they focus on sexual. The sexual is really important, but sometimes we need
26:38to look at, for example, other forms of abuse that take us, they don't, they don't operate on it,
26:43on its own. It's all intersecting. Maybe someone is being sexually exploited, but before that,
26:49they were maybe abused financially or economically or verbally. So focusing on only the sexual on its
26:58own when it comes. So for example, if someone is receiving a complaint and they don't see sexual,
27:02they dismiss it, that's a huge problem. We need, we always tell organizations, look at the informal
27:09complaints. Look at the other complaints that come, like maybe a complaint on the training venue. I don't
27:17know. Look for much more complexities within those contexts. Just don't treat it with like,
27:22non-sexual, then it's not dangerous. Right. Because they all intersect.
27:27And this is, and this, this also brings us to the idea that we should not be thinking of
27:33safeguarding as a standalone practice or a standalone department with an organization.
27:38It also pushes us as organizations to rethink how we mainstream it as values and ethics within
27:47other departments as well. Yeah. I think we, we've, we've observed that as well within WHO where
27:54people were actually asking us, you're doing a fantastic job on the sexual misconduct front. Can
28:01we talk about abusive conduct in general? Can that this, this thing, can this be included in a more
28:08broader term? So I think even people feel that. Before we wrap up, I, I really, I'm sure a lot
28:16of
28:16lessons are thinking this is what brought you to do this work and what keeps you going?
28:24Uh, I think we, we came into this work naturally and organically, to be honest.
28:34Yeah. It was a progression because when we first started our, our professional careers in that sense,
28:43within that field as also independence, uh, organizers, we started as movement organizers,
28:50to be honest. And we started with the queer LGBT feminist community. And then while we were doing
28:58that work and we were trying to organize, we were trying to resource the movement. We were trying to
29:03resource also technically and financially, et cetera. What we found is the movements are not really
29:10working because of the abuse that is happening within those movements. There are so many abuses,
29:18including, for example, like people threatening each other to tell the police about their sexuality,
29:24people harassing each other, that so many that they were rife in abuse, that we naturally found
29:32ourselves moving into a safeguarding direction. So this is what brought us to the work, I think.
29:40And also we found ourselves that within, like as organizers in the movements, being part of
29:46different movements across the region, people wanted to silence like those abuses. We cannot justify
29:52our harmful practices because we are victims or we are marginalized. So that's why we, me and Nora,
30:01like thinking, and it's serious. It didn't happen like, oh, one day we wake up like, oh,
30:05you're not going to be safeguarding experts. No, no, no. Organically, like we, we cannot be part of
30:09those. There's a cognitive dissonance. We cannot be part of those organizing of those movements.
30:14And we witnessed so much abuse inflicted on like, yeah. So we said that we need to professionalize
30:23in a way, or I don't know, it's happened. Yeah. Organically.
30:25Yes. And what keeps you going though?
30:29So it came, it came, I think it came from the idea basically that being marginalized does not excuse
30:35your abuse. So that was the starting point. What keeps us going, to be honest with you,
30:43it can be really difficult at times. And I want to, and Jenny, I want to say it really,
30:49it can be really difficult because what people aren't aware of yet is the amount of abuse
30:56safeguarding practitioners get themselves, to be honest. Like sometimes it can be as simple as,
31:05and it's really exhausting and tiring. We're still of course doing the work because we do believe that
31:10we need to change organizations from within. It's difficult to deal sometimes with the organizational
31:17resistance to transformation. So what's keeping us going at the moment is that we integrated both
31:24aspects of organizational transformation with safeguarding because they need to happen
31:30in parallel. They cannot be happening in silos.
31:34And to be honest, on a personal level, we take good care of ourselves, honestly. Like I know,
31:40like, yeah, we, we take breaks. We say, I don't, I don't want to do it now. I don't have
31:46the
31:46energy to do it. And we are like, we are okay with saying, no, I don't want to engage with
31:52that case,
31:52or I don't want to keep going. I want to take care of myself because if I don't do that,
31:57switching off, sometimes we, we will, we don't want to be in a, in a, in a, in a status
32:04of burnout.
32:05I don't like the burnout because we become so reactive and I don't like that feeling.
32:10I want to be able to strategize, think rather than just being, yeah. So we do take care a lot
32:17of ourselves and each other, to be honest.
32:19Yes. And therapy is very important to the field. And it's really important for if you deal with
32:26cases like that, you really need to be in therapy. The world around us pushes us to be in therapy.
32:34No, I think a lot of people can relate to this, especially if they are in the field,
32:38they definitely can relate to the burning out. And it's, it's something gradual that you don't
32:44even recognize happening to you. Right. So, um, prioritizing yourself and your self-care is,
32:50uh, I think a great advice. So thank you so much.
32:54And it's a radical self-care. It's not coming from a selfish place. It's coming from,
32:58so I can keep going, you know?
33:00Mm-hmm. Yeah. For, for, for the system to be able to sustain itself, right? Otherwise it would just crash.
33:07Exactly.
33:08Thank you so much, uh, Dr. Noof and Noor for taking the time, uh, to speak to us, uh,
33:14on the hashtag no excuse podcast. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this.
33:18It was really nice. I love that. Thank you.
33:23Thank you for listening. If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to reach out to us,
33:29to prseah at who.int. Until the next time, goodbye.
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