The CIC joins in celebrating One Health Day 2023!
Observed on 3 November every year, the initiative looks to raise global awareness on the need for a One Health trans-disciplinary approach towards solving today’s critical global health challenges.
One Health is an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems. It recognises that the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants, and the wider environment are closely linked and inter-dependent.
As such, different sectors, disciplines and communities are required to collaborate and conduct joint actions to effectively support ecosystem level health, all while considering broader global challenges and sustainable development.
One Health is therefore well aligned with the activities and science behind the sustainable utilisation of wildlife resources, which operates at the intersection of wildlife management, food security, climate change and more.
This year’s One Health Day is particularly timely for the CIC, with the organisation having committed to numerous One Health actions over the course of 2023.
At the 69th General Assembly in Paris this past April, the CIC adopted a resolution which calls for support to UN One Health efforts through “citizen science and contributing to the efforts of monitoring and preventing future zoonotic diseases.”
This resolution formalises many of the CIC’s existing efforts to support One Health, particularly through the Flying Vets Project in Mongolia, which aims to support the implementation of One Health principles in Mongolia to strengthen resilience against wildlife diseases, including zoonoses.
Since the approval of funding for Mongolia’s One Health initiative from UNEP’s Nature for Health (N4H) program, the CIC is supporting the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) as an implementation agency of N4H through the 2023-26 CIC-WOAH cooperation agreement.
This month, a 3 month Scoping Mission will begin in Mongolia, with partners using N4H guidance to work with national partners and build a national picture across the country.
As part of this process, WOAH-CIC will be working closely with partners and develop the project; as a next step, a Data Analysis Workshop will be organised as part of the Scoping Mission.
This builds on previous workshops organised by WOAH-CIC in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia at the initial stages of this initiative, which brought together different experts in the environment, human health and veterinary sectors to identify the issues that may affect public and animal health in Mongolia and internationally.
