Context
One Health recognises the connection between the health of people, animals and the environment. Those responsible from the various sectors should cooperate to protect everyone’s health. To better recognise these relationships and implement better health protection in Africa, decision-makers must have reliable data that reflects the complex interconnections.
Objective
Data on the health of people, animals and the environment is linked in an intelligent manner and shared across borders in Africa.
Approach
The project develops principles in a working group - under the leadership of the Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources, AU-IBAR - to exchange and utilise One Health information on the African continent, in the regions and in the individual countries. The working group consists of representatives from the Africa Centres for Disease Control, Prevention (Africa CDC), the Regional Economic Communities in Africa (RECs), the member states of the African Union, United Nations’ programmes and other partners.
The project facilitates institutional cooperation on data standards, data integration, analysis and visualisation to secure exchange of information between countries. To this end, it builds on existing data systems and develops publicly accessible software solutions for One Health cases. The project also creates the institutional and technical conditions for improved digital One Health management at continental, regional and national level. It cooperates with the African Union, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in East Africa and ministries in Malawi, Cameroon and Rwanda to achieve this.
To expand cross-sector and cross-border collaboration, the project supports the establishment of the One Digital Health community of practice. In the community of practice, political, scientific and economic experts can exchange ideas on One Health, digital health and data and develop standardised solutions.
