Integrate the One Health approach into our cooperation
Summary of VSF-International Internal Workshop organized by AVSF
The concept “one world, one health” first appeared in the mid-2000s: it highlighted a “brutal” collective awareness of the link between animal diseases, public health and ecosystem transformation. One Health (or Ecohealth) is therefore an integrated approach to health and is essentially based on strengthening collaborations between human health, animal health and environmental management. In northern Mali, from 2005, the establishment of a mobile mixed human and animal health system in the pastoral zone, is one of the important activities of ASVF’s Malian cooperation. It is an example of implementation, beyond the consolidation of adapted sanitary governance mechanisms, of concrete “One Health” actions, for the benefit of the rural populations and the strengthening of these collaborations between human health, animal health and environmental management. Other actions related to the One Health approach are conducted by AVSF and other members of VSF-International network: integration of livestock and farming in an agroecological approach, development of phytosanitary alternatives for the reduction of pesticide use, better management of effluents from farms and slaughterhouses, research and application of ethnoveterinary techniques as an alternative to the use of chemical medicines with effects on the environment, waste management in general and medical waste in particular, etc.
> Read VSF-International position paper “Agroecology and One Health”
This document presents the outcomes of an internal workshop held in Bamako in November 2018, by AVSF and VSF-International, for its teams and partners from Western Africa. Its main objective was to identify priorities for better implementation of the principles of One Health approach in the actions of VSF-International network’s members and their partners, based on their feedback in the countries where they are working. It was followed by a national seminar “For an increased consideration of the One Health approach”, open to public and private partners of AVSF and other members of the network in Mali.
