Building ‘One Health’ momentum for people, animals and the environment across the Global South

One after the other, scientific presentations made at the highest levels are moving the needle on ‘whole of health’ approaches by, in and for developing countries.

CGIAR One Health Initiative Annual Meeting and Stakeholder Workshop, 24–26 Apr 2023, Addis Ababa

A week following the G20 scientific meeting in India, I led the annual meeting of 30 or so members of the CGIAR Initiative on One Health, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Our presentations covered key achievements of 2022, which, in addition to our global advocacy and influencing work at high-level conferences, included work on wildlife value chains and health risks in Côte d’Ivoire and Vietnam, food safety interventions in Ethiopia and Vietnam, antimicrobial resistance in poultry farms in Kenya and aquaculture farms in Bangladesh, modelling of microbial pollution in watersheds in Ethiopia and India, and the impact of information on demand for safer food in Kenya. On Wednesday, 26 April, the CGIAR Initiative on One Health held a stakeholder workshop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, that brought together some 50 participants from various countries to evaluate progress of the initiative’s research activities and to explore how it could better support One Health activities in the target countries and the region at large.

See: CGIAR Initiative on One Health hosts workshop in Ethiopia to strengthen regional and global research partnerships—CGIAR

WOAH General Assembly, 21–25 May 2023, Paris

A month later, I attended the 90th general assembly of delegates of the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), in Paris, where I argued that although One Health is making good momentum with the work of the Quadripartite and the interest of many countries, financing One Health work remains a challenge.

At the WOAH General Assembly, I called for countries of the Global South as well as North to invest in One Health.

Radio France International, 25 May 2023, Paris

That same week, I was invited to take part in a health interview by Radio France Internationale (RFI). I participated in a panel along with Magda Robalo, president of the Institute for Global Health and Development in Guinea-Bissau, where she formerly was high commissioner for COVID-19 and minister of health; Herman Claeys, of Belgium’s Federal Public Service Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment and Belgium’s delegate to the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), and Flavie Goutard, a specialist in health risks within CIRAD (Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement), and program coordinator for the Vietnamese work of the initiative PREZODE—Preventing Zoonotic Disease Emergence—in which she works with the National Institute for Veterinary Research and the National Institute of Animal Sciences, in Hanoi.

For RFI’s large international audience, I put the concept of One Health in simple terms and raised the challenges of operationalizing One Health in the world’s low- and middle-income countries, where it is important to build local capacities in One Health. I explained that in Kenya and Vietnam, for example, ILRI has developed One Health field sites in different rural counties to help local health officials to apply One Health practices to control zoonotic infections right there, on their doorstep.

See the RFI podcast: One Health: prevention of emerging diseases and the importance of overall health, 23 May 2023.

ILRI-WOAH MoU signing, 25 May 2023, Paris

On 25 May, ILRI and WOAH signed a memorandum of understanding for the welfare and health of animals. This strategic partnership marks a new era of collaboration to protect animal health and promote sustainable livestock production systems across the globe. The two organizations committed to working hand in hand to tackle emerging challenges and enhance global animal health resilience through a One Health approach. The agreement establishes a collaborative framework to address critical animal health issues through joint research projects, capacity building and knowledge sharing.

The ILRI-WOAH partnership enables the organizations to pool their expertise, resources and networks to develop innovative solutions that promote animal welfare, enhance disease surveillance and strengthen veterinary services across regions.

Read the blog article: World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) and International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI): A strategic partnership to safeguard global animal health

INRAE and PREZODE meetings, 26 May 2023, Paris

The following day, on 26 May, I visited the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE) and attended a PREZODE partner meeting, where I moderated a discussion about the initiative’s progress. PREZODE—Preventing Zoonotic Disease Emergence—is an initiative launched at the Earth Summit in 2021. PREZODE brings together more than 200 members and 22 countries. Representatives of Mozambique, Vietnam and Costa Rica showcased their methodology to implement effective One Health platforms. ILRI is a member of the initiative and I am a member of the initiative’s secretariat, which is hosted by CIRAD, the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development.

World Food Safety Day and report launch, 7 Jun 2023, Global

In early June, on World Food Safety Day, ILRI launched an important new report, New directions for tackling food safety risks in the informal sector of developing countries, where the food systems are still dominated by small-scale processors, grocers, market vendors and food service operators and unsafe food is a widespread issue. In this new report, we argue that local action is needed in these informal food markets to rebalance the use of ‘sticks and carrots’ that provide the local food actors and institutions with both disincentives and incentives for providing hygienic practices and environments.

Key messages of ILRI’s new food safety report

1 Low- and middle-income countries bear the greatest burden of foodborne disease.

2 Unsafe food takes a huge toll on human health and the economy.

3 Risk-based approaches to food safety work better than a focus on hazards.

4 Simple, low-cost interventions can reduce food safety risks.

5 Food safety has a direct impact on health.

6 Food standards protect consumers and help producers.

7 There is no food security without food safety.

Feed the Future Innovation Lab on Food Safety webinar, 14 Jun 2023, Indiana

A week later, on 14 Jun, along with Fernando Sampedro, professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Minnesota, I took part in a webinar on Applying Risk-Based Approaches in Food Safety hosted by USAID’s Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety at Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Indiana. I presented case studies from Asia of food safety risk prioritization, including a five-year project on pork safety in Vietnam, a three-year Safe Food, Fair Food project in Cambodia, and a four-year project on food safety interventions in Vietnam’s pig slaughterhouses.

Doctoral these defence, Jun 2023, Uppsala, Sweden

In June 2023, I travelled to Uppsala, Sweden, to attend the PhD defence of ILRI student Ngo Hoang Tuan Hai at Uppsala University. He successfully ‘nailed’ his thesis with a presentation of his research on improving food safety in the traditional pork markets and pig slaughterhouses in Vietnam by employing ‘light touch’ interventions. His work was conducted as part of our SafePORK project, which was funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). I was delighted to visit our partners in Uppsala, which include not only Uppsala University but also the Swedish National Veterinary Institute (SVA) and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). ILRI has had long-term highly productive collaborations with these institutes, in particular to train PhD students from developing countries and to partner in livestock research related to One Health and zoonotic diseases, food safety and antimicrobial resistance. While in Uppsala, I made sure to seek out and thank Johanna Lindahl, a Swedish veterinary epidemiologist at Uppsala University who did many years of research at ILRI and who, among others, serves as a friendly and expert ‘bridge’ between ILRI and Uppsala-based institutions. I also met and thanked Ulf Magnusson from SLU who had led the Livestock Health Flagship of the ILRI-led CGIAR Research Program on Livestock (2017–2021).

This is Part 2 of a 4-part article.