Quadripartite-Pacific Community One Health Workshop

Background

As a follow-up of the recommendations from the Asia Pacific Quadripartite One Health Workshop held in September 2023 in Bangkok, the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) Regional Representation for Asia and the Pacific (RRAP) together with its Quadripartite partners (FAO-WHO-UNEP) and the Pacific Community (SPC) organised the Quadripartite One Health (OH) Workshop for the Pacific Island Countries (PICs) on 6-8 August in Nadi, Fiji. The workshop was held back-to-back with the One Health and Security meeting led by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Pacific Security College & The Pacific Community (SPC) on 5-6 August and the SPC-led meeting on Climate Change & Health on 9^th August at the same venue. This series of workshops was held with the following objectives:

1. Consolidate all the intentions of the partners to conduct One Health (OH) Meetings or workshops into one comprehensive regional meeting.
2. Advocate and familiarise the Pacific island countries (PICs) to the Quadripartite One Health Joint Plan of Action (QPT OH JPA) and its implementation guide.
3. Encourage interaction between animal health, human health, and environment sector of the PICs and engage closely with health security stakeholders to identify priority OH issues and multi-sector interventions relevant to the situations in the PICs.

The One Health and Security Meeting led by ADB included participants representing human, animal, environmental and health security agencies—such as police and immigration—to improve awareness of common health and security problems in the Pacific, and the potential benefits of joint actions using the OH approach. The SPC-led workshop on climate change and health focused mostly on the impact of climate change on human health.

The Quadripartite One Health meeting was a response to the strong request from SPC to deliver a regional OH meeting in the Pacific following the Asia Pacific Quadripartite One Health Workshop in 2023 wherein PICs (except Papua New Guinea (PNG)) could not be invited. A total of 51 participants including 27 representatives from 12 countries (Fiji, PNG, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tonga, Samoa, Cook Islands, Marshall Islands, Palau, Kiribati, Nauru, and New Zealand) and development partners attended the event. The workshop provided a great opportunity for networking amongst the country participants, OH partners and the QPT.

Activities

Participants were oriented to the global and regional Quadripartite OH activities, QPT OH JPA’s six Action Tracks, and Implementation Guide.  The countries completed a stock-taking exercise identifying existing in-country initiatives involving multi-sector coordination/contributions and aligned these to each of the OH JPA’s Action Tracks.  The countries identified key activities on OH that can be implemented, making the best use of available resources at the country level.

Key Points

Some of the key points noted included :

• Climate change is the greatest threat to the Pacific Island Countries, and in many countries the OH concept has not penetrated into areas of health security agencies such as police, immigration, and customs, who are at the front line in biosecurity.
• It was acknowledged that the Pacific had long-standing efforts for multi-sector coordination and collaboration through past and current development activities at the national and (Pacific) regional level.  AMR is the most visible and successful coordination activity in the region.
• Participants acknowledged the need for high-level advocacy and engagement to facilitate OH implementation at national and sub-regional levels.
• The importance of cultural and community aspects and sensitisation was highlighted to effectively implement the OH initiatives and create an impact in the region.
• The PICs continue to face challenges in the workforce with outward migrations and veterinary paraprofessionals forming the main veterinary workforce.  These can benefit from continuous professional development training.
• It will be useful to map out OH activities relevant to all sectors, and common points of interest where sectors can engage and collaborate to complete key actions and objectives.
• Several donor agencies are funding activities on OH in the region and there is a need for effective coordination.

Documents

Agenda

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