Preparing current and emerging health leaders: An innovative competency-based framework for health diplomacy

Health diplomacy is increasingly recognized as critical domain of practice for advancing global health equity, navigating political complexity, and fostering cooperation across sectors and borders. Yet formal training opportunities remain limited worldwide, with existing programs differing in length, depth and content, and lacking a shared core curriculum. To address these persistent gaps, the Health Diplomacy Institutional Network (HDIN) developed a globally informed, competency-based training framework that contributes to the professionalization of the field by offering a shared foundation for capacity building in health diplomacy. Co-developed by global experts and practitioners, the framework identifies five key competencies – global health knowledge, political and diplomatic acumen, strategic leadership, cross-cultural communication, and advocacy and coalition-building – each articulated across four progressive levels of mastery, from basic to expert. This structure enables institutions to align training content with learners’ roles, experience levels, and contexts. The framework’s flexible, outcomes-based design allows for adaptation across institutional missions, educational formats, and geopolitical settings. Accompanied by practical implementation tools, the HDIN Training Framework supports high-quality, context-responsive capacity-building for academic institutions, governments, NGOs, and multilateral organizations. It aims to equip a health diplomacy workforce capable of advancing health priorities amid intensifying global interdependence and uncertainty.