From April 18 to 22, 2022, the Colombia FETP and Instituto Nacional de Salud (INS), with support from TEPHINET, hosted a weeklong strategic planning workshop to establish goals for the network and identify an approach for determining its structure and leadership. Representatives from TEPHINET, U.S. CDC’s Workforce and Institute Development Branch (WIDB), Colombia FETP, INS Colombia, CDC SAM, and REDSUR member countries–including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay–utilized unique strategic planning methods to stimulate discussions around REDSUR’s identity, legal framework, communications plan, and strategy for increasing field epidemiology capacity in the region. Following prompts from the workshop’s facilitator, attendees utilized LEGO bricks to build representations of REDSUR’s identity, ideal future state, strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities, communications plan, and strategies for success.
During the meeting, member countries also defined roles and responsibilities within REDSUR, selecting Colombia to coordinate efforts to strengthen the network and implement its strategic plan.