PRESS CONFERENCE FOR THE ONE HEALTH HIGH LEVEL EXPERT PANEL (OHHLEP) LAUNCH

PRESS CONFERENCE FOR THE ONE HEALTH HIGH LEVEL EXPERT PANEL (OHHLEP) LAUNCH

FAO Director-General

20 May 2021 

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for your presence. 

1. I am pleased to be here to launch the One Health High Level Expert Panel with my colleagues from WHO, OIE, and UNEP.  
2. We brought together one of the world’s best One Health expert teams to help our organizations to better navigate One Health and to ensure that our collective responses are driven by the best available science.
3. The Panel’s broad range of expertise and diverse regional background will support us in shaping the One Health Future that we all aspire.  
4. One Health is an overarching value for our mandate as food links human, animal, plant and environment.
5. Transformed agri-food systems can provide safe and nutritious food to our dinner tables, farms with good biosecurity can prevent the spread of zoonotic diseases that could later spill over to humans, and the prudent use of antimicrobials in agriculture can prevent the spread of superbugs. 
6. Food and Health are interlinked. For a productive, healthy and happy life, we need nutritious food such as that in traditional and local diets.
7. These diets promote local food production and consumption patterns. They encourage a sustainable agriculture, and safeguard landscapes.
8. We need to make sure that this indigenous knowledge is available for younger generations.
9. FAO’s new Strategic Framework focuses on the transformation to MORE efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agri-food systems for better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life, leaving no one behind.
10. With this nexus, FAO is working closely with our partners, the Tripartite Organizations and UNEP, IAEA and others to effectively implement an integrated One Health approach.
11. The One Health High Level Expert Panel will support our organizations and Members to make the right decisions and prevent long-term public health risks.  
12. I would like to encourage the curiosity of the journalists present here with us and their interest to know more about One Health - to shape the narrative, and promote One Health for all.
13. Thank you.