@FAOGhana/David Youngs

Feedback from One Health stakeholders was collected during a two-day workshop to improve the FAO One Health Monitoring Tool prior to its roll-out worldwide

The One Health Monitoring Tool (OHMT) supports local, national and regional entities to assess progress made and identify gaps in One Health operationalization and institutionalization. Developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the OHMT is an innovative tool that will be used to monitor One Health progress, assess and evaluate outcomes and improve transparency and support accountability relationships as countries are prepared to respond to health threats arising at ecosystem, animal and human interface.

In order to gather information on One Health, a two-day workshop was held on 21 February, bringing together members of the One Health Technical Working Group in Ghana to review the OHMT and to provide inputs for its final review, adoption and roll-out worldwide.

The One Health is an integrated and unifying approach that aims to balance and optimise the health of people, animals and ecosystems in a sustainable way. It recognises that the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants and the wider environment (including ecosystems) are closely linked and interdependent. Until now, no tool was available yet for countries to assess and monitor their One Health progress or to produce accurate data on the operationalisation of One Health at country and regional levels. With the pioneering OHMT, all countries, including those without national One Health platforms, will be able to coordinate and cooperate across sectors involved in health management to monitor One Health progress and assess and evaluate One Health results and operational level.

During the opening remarks of the One Health Monitoring Tool pilot workshop in Ghana, the representative of the the Veterinary Service Directorate of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), Dr. Danso Fenteng - Deputy Director and Head of the Epidemiology Unit affirmed that “The country has come a long way as far as the One Health Approach is concerned, therefore we are now ready to move from the concept to One Health Implementation”. In representation of the FAO, the Country Team Leader of the FAO Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD), Mr. Garba Ahmed, stated that “Ghana will be able to make significant inputs into the OHMT, as the One Health Technical Working Group has worked on many different areas of One Health in the country and has been in operations since 2018”.

FAO One Health Monitoring Tool and the Tripartite

The Tripartite (FAO, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) are supporting the One Health approach implementation at all levels to ensure that specialists in multiple sectors and disciplines work together to foster well-being and tackle threats to health and ecosystems while addressing the collective need for clean water, energy and air, safe and nutritious food, taking action on climate change, and contributing to sustainable development.

The OHMT was developed in consultation with relevant stakeholders such as WHO-AFRO, OIE in Africa, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (AfCDC) and The African Union – InterAfrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) and needs to be tested at national and regional levels to be fully adopted. The OHMT is built on existing frameworks such as the World Bank’s operational framework for strengthening human, animal, and environmental public health systems at their interface, the One Health SMART tool developed by the University of Minnesota (UMN) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the One Health Assessment Planning for Performance (OH APP) framework prepared by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded by Preparedness & Response project.

FAO, in collaboration with One Health platforms of Member Countries, is organizing pilot OHMT workshops in Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia and Tanzania that will bring together One Health actors to review the tool. The feedback collected during this two-day workshop will be used to improve the OHMT for final review and adoption at the regional level through a workshop that will take place in Kenya this year, prior to its roll-out worldwide.

The complexity associated with the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus spillover, and links to wildlife, livestock, food value chains and markets, highlight the need for countries and partners to intensify their efforts in implementing the One Health approach, to effectively prepare and prevent the next pandemic.