Be part of the paradigm shift - join our participative process around One Health!
Project recap
Project brief as result of phase 1: Three Pathways Against Tomorrow's Crises
→ read it here
Phase 2 - regional online workshop output: Building sustainable and resilient food systems through One Health: lessons from East Africa
Project and context
With the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the past two years have highlighted more than ever the need for a holistic policy approach when tackling phenomena such as zoonotic diseases (infectious diseases jumping from animals to humans). At the same time, ‘our house is burning’ and the way humanity is interacting with its environment needs to radically change since the way we impact our environment has a direct effect on our own health. “One health” is a much-needed paradigm shift exploring the interlinkages between human health, animal health, and the health of the ecosystems we inhabit.
While international organizations and their Member States are increasingly aligning and reacting to current challenges, it is crucial to go one step further by looking into the future and thinking about the “One Health” approach of tomorrow in an open and inclusive process, outside of usual thinking patterns and existing multilateral processes.
With our project "One Health" for the Future, we are exploring zoonoses, antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and food safety and security threats - three major phenomena which "One Health" aims at preventing and addressing. In phase 1 of the project, we envisioned dystopian scenarios around these phenomena which should be avoided from materializing, in an open online workshop, and developed recommendations for necessary policy steps to be taken at national and international levels together with practitioners and experts from the field at the Geneva Health Forum.
The result? Our project brief One Health for the Future: Three Pathways against tomorrow's crises
In the second phase of the project, we are concentrating on the topic of food security and One Health in East Africa.
The final results will be shared at the Falling Walls Science Summit with key stakeholders in Berlin on 9 November 2022.
About "One Health"
Foundations: The origins of the "One Health" approach date back to many decades ago with the collaboration between human and veterinary medicine disciplines. More concretely, "One Health" as a concept first appeared in 2004, when a coalition of global health experts laid its foundations with the so-called "Manhattan principles", setting the agenda for 15 years of advocacy by several academic and non-profit organizations. The "Manhattan principles" are 12 recommendations calling for more collaboration between actors working on human, animal and environmental health respectively. The end goal is more effective and forward-looking prevention and combat of epidemic/epizootic diseases and the maintenance of ecosystem integrity.
International collaboration: In 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) formally laid down their collaboration through the FAI/OIE/WHO Tripartite Concept Note. In the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak, "One Health" gained further momentum with the creation of the One Health High-Level Expert Panel (OHHLEP) in 2020 with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) joining the multilateral alliance.
→ Are you interested in reading more about "One Health"? Then check out further resources & our background reader here!
This project is sponsored by the Rosa-Luxemburg Stiftung with funds of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of the Federal Republic of Germany.